


Into the Viral Abyss

by Komorii



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Horror, Resident Evil-inspired, Romance, Sketchy Medical Trial, Survival Horror, Virus, Zombies, mutations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Komorii/pseuds/Komorii
Summary: You were kinda desperate for money. Desperate enough to reach out to a company that there wasn’t much about online to participate in a medical trial for an unspecified drug. Now you found yourself running for your life as everyone around you mutates into an undead monster, except a boy you met unexpectedly who may be the only one who can help you escape alive and in one piece.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Found myself inspired after playing the RE2 remake and RE6 recently so drew inspiration from that for this. Only 1 OC this time so hope you guys like him! I do have to disclose that he doesn't appear until chapter 3, but I'm currently working on chapter 4 so I'll have chapters 2-3 out soon!

You checked the email on your phone for the fifth time since arriving at the building thirty minutes early. 

It still said to come to Haven Labs, ten o’clock in the morning on Monday. Come to the front desk and you will be escorted to the lab where the testing will be carried out. Simple, easy money, why was this making you so nervous? 

This really wasn’t how you had imagined spending the start of your week as you were browsing job sites the previous Friday night. 

You had been looking for work, but everything seemed to want qualifications that you didn’t have or wanted you to start work late at night at a dubious location, _oh and bring your best_ _g-string_ _, the more see-through the better_. That one resulted in you quickly backspacing out of that ad. Not really something you wanted to deal with just for money. 

You were just looking for jobs at first, so you almost skipped past the posting looking for participants of all ages and backgrounds to take part in a medical trial for a new drug that was being developed. 

It might be something for you to do, and it caught significantly more of your interest when you noticed that the going rate for participants in the clinical trial was five thousand dollars. 

That would really help you out with your job search, then you wouldn’t have to take some terrible minimum-wage job while you waited for something better to come your way. That could really help you in the long run. So, you immediately sent an email to the company with all your information, agreed on a time to come in for testing, and spent the rest of your weekend excited for the money to come. 

The facility was a single floored building with an electric fence surrounding the general area. The building was a dull grey color with blacked out windows and little of anything around it besides the pavement that covered the entire premises. The area was very quiet, not even any birds. Outside the pavemented area was the dusty road you had walked along, and beside that a forested area on either side of the small road. There had been a sign at the start of the road that led here stating that this was a private road belonging to the company, and you were just happy at the time to know you had been heading in the right direction. 

Sitting on a bench outside the facility, you wondered exactly what this new drug was supposed to do. Could be a cure for cancer, but it was definitely not some weird male enhancement drug since then they would say on the posting that they only wanted male volunteers. Either way, it didn’t seem like too much work. Come, take a pill, go home, report back in a week. Almost seemed too good to be true, the company must really have a lot of money to throw around. 

Though it sort of made sense that the company was willing to offer so much money to participants, since it was a forty-five minute walk from the bus stop into nowhere. Their facility was very isolated, with a security guard working a toll booth that you had walked past to get inside. You were hoping that the drug didn’t give you a third arm or an ear growing from your forehead, but whatever, it was their money to spend and you would gladly take it. 

There wasn’t a whole lot of activity outside of the spacious company headquarters. There were quite a few cars parked in the parking lot and a couple of security officers patrolling the premises who all but ignored you on your bench. 

You pulled up the posting again to see if there were any details you missed. You had tried to look up the company online earlier, but they didn’t have a website. Who didn’t have a website nowadays? Everything else was pretty straight forward; come, get a shot, get money, leave.  

 _Help us help_ _others!_

You rolled your eyes at the cheesy line at the end of the posting. Why were all the job postings today working so hard to try and be trendy? 

Too caught up in your thoughts for the moment, you were surprised to see it was about a minute from your appointed check-in time. Getting up quickly, you brushed off your clothing, turning around to head over to the automatic doors. You really didn’t want them to kick you off the test because you were a few minutes late! 

Striding over, you wondered what went on in the place. Since the windows were blacked-out, so you had no clue what the inside of the building looked like at all. Walking over, you found that the automatic doors were not so automatic, as they stayed stubbornly shut in front of you. 

You were about to knock when a buzzing came from a box just above the door. 

“Haven Enterprises, do you have an appointment?” came a female voice. 

You gave her your name. “Um, I’m here for the medical trial?” 

The box was silent for about twenty seconds. You were kind of nervous now, why was this place so weird? 

The voice box came back to life in an instant, filling the silence. “Please enter.” 

With that, the doors opened, allowing you to pass through them and enter into the small reception area. 

There were a few plants in the lobby which all looked very fake to you, and a long hallway which was sectioned off by a large metal detector. The central focus of the lobby was a small black wooden desk in the middle of the room where an older brunette woman sat, clad in a black pants suit. She called your name without looking up, pausing the loud typing noises she had been making as you entered. 

“Yes?” you answered, making your way towards her desk, hoping your outfit looked professional enough for a medical trial. You had no idea what people usually wore to those, but you figured your nicest pair of pants and a high-cut long-sleeved shirt would be fine. 

“Through the metal detector. Elevator at the end of the hall to floor B20.” 

You wanted to ask her questions, but she still hadn’t even looked at you, and went back to furiously typing on her keyboard as if you weren’t even there. It was a surprise to you that this building had 20 basement floors since it looked like a one-floor building from outside. 

Reluctantly, you walked towards the metal detector, walking through it to a green light signaling you were free of metal. Reception lady still hadn’t looked up in your direction, so you guess maybe she didn’t even care if you had a gun or not. You had your cellphone on you, which the detectors seemed fine with. Didn’t seem like good business practice to not even look to check that you hadn’t tried to scam the detector or anything. 

Taking your attention away from her, you walked to the end of the hallway. There were a few doors along the hallway, but none were open and all of the rooms were dark inside. Maybe more people did evening shifts here?  

You got to the end of the hallway, pressing the very ordinary-looking elevator call button. Immediately the doors opened, revealing an empty inside of silver metal so shiny you could see your reflection and black patternless carpet. Looking in the mirror, you studied your reflection. Great, you looked as nervous as you felt. 

What floor was it again? There were floors from 1 all the way to B30. Was it B30? You tried pressing the button, but nothing happened. It didn’t even light up. 

“Unauthorized access. Please present staff pass to access floors B1 to 19 and B21 and below.” 

Oops. It must have been B20 then, since that seemed to be the singular floor that you had any access to get to. Pressing the button, it lit up in yellow and the doors finally closed before the elevator descended. 

There was no music in the elevator to help ease your tensions. The elevator did not stop until it hit floor B20 and the doors opened without a sound to reveal the very white interior of the floor. 

The walls and floors were white and clean, no spots anywhere that you noticed. There were two empty white couches facing each other with a small table in between that held a few magazines, but none that you recognized. 

Surveying the area, you saw what looked like another reception desk twenty feet from the couches, a woman with short dark red hair in a lab coat sitting behind the desk. She hadn’t noticed you yet, and you figured this was who you should be speaking to, so you walked past the couches towards her desk. 

She looked up at your arrival, picking up a clipboard that she had in front of her.  

“Name?” she asked, looking up at you from her seated position. You liked her more than the other one already, mostly since she had bothered to make eye contact with you. 

You told her your name, and she wrote something on the paper she had in front of her. Turning to a file cabinet behind her, she reached into a folder with practiced ease and pulled out a paper and a pen, handing it to you. 

“I just need you to check over this information. If it is all correct, sign at the bottom and bring it back to me, then I’ll call the head researcher and she will take you back to the trial area.” 

Seemed straightforward enough. Voicing your understanding to her, you took the proffered paper and pen and made your way back to the couches, sitting down and placing the paper on the table to look at. 

It was largely standard information that you had already sent them. Name, age, gender, medical history... finding it to all be correct, you signed the paper in the signature of patient area. All finished, you stood up and headed back to the receptionist.  

She took the paper from you, reading it over herself and reaching to grab a telephone, quickly dialing a number and pressing the receiver to her ear. 

“Yes. 04F. Yes.” She spoke confusingly into the phone, then hanging it up and turning back to you. “She will be here shortly, just wait here.” 

You assumed the researcher lady was going to be taking the elevator down, maybe then you’d get to see one of the mysterious other floors. To your surprise, a door directly behind the receptionist opened, a door that you didn’t even notice was a door because of how well it blended in with the wall. 

A tall woman with very light brown hair in a bob and a white lab coat over grey pants exited the door, which promptly slid shut behind her. She looked very stern, and you couldn’t really imagine what a smile would look like on her face. She walked past the reception area to stand directly in front of you. 

She looked to be openly appraising you, looking you over entirely before speaking to you. “Alright, come with me.” 

You tried to look to the receptionist for help, as the woman had already turned back and was headed towards the plain-looking wall which you now knew was a door. The receptionist only gestured for you to follow the woman while maintaining a neutral facial expression that you couldn’t read. 

She produced a card from her pocket, smoothly pressing it to the middle of the wall, which slid open again, revealing a dark hallway. Without looking back at you, she entered through the door, leaving you to scramble behind the reception desk in an effort to keep up with her. 

As soon as you entered the door, it closed right behind you, but the hallway was no longer dark, motion-activated lights lighting up with the woman’s movement ahead of you. 

The hallway was long and narrow, and led into a fork in the hallway with two opposing paths. Smoothly turning right, the woman led you to a door at the end of that particular hall, opening it to reveal what looked like a dormitory of some sort. There was a kitchen and lounge area immediately visible to you in the common area, but further into the room you could see multiple rooms with beds in them. Also visible to you now were multiple other people milling around, eating, sitting on the couches. 

You counted, and there seemed to be 9 in total. You assumed you were the last one to arrive or something. 

Immediately, a man around forty stormed up to the researcher, pointing a finger in her face. 

“Hey lady, what’s up with the lack of chicks here? I ain’t into grannies!” he shouted. 

“Edward, we have spoken about this and you are free to leave if you are willing to leave without payment,” the woman responded. Since she was in front of you, you couldn’t see her facial expression, and while the man didn’t seem fazed by her response, you did not want to be on the end of her displeasure, as this man was. 

“Everyone,” the woman called out, ignoring Edward’s face which clearly said he wanted to argue more, drawing the gazes of everyone in the area. “This is the last of our volunteers. Be prepared for the first test this afternoon.” 

After saying that, the woman promptly turned on her heel and left, and you heard a locking noise on the door after it closed. 

You then found yourself alone and locked in a room with a bunch of strangers, including the man in front of you whose attention you had now caught from your position by the door. 

“Finally, I’ve been tellin’ that bitch for three days now...” he trailed off, giving you time to more thoroughly appraise him. 

Your earlier estimation was right, he seemed to be around forty years old, wearing a tank top and very ratty looking jeans. His dark brown hair, what was still there of it at least, looked greasy and went down to shoulders. He was also somewhat overweight, stomach causing his dirty tank top to ride up slightly. And based on his statements just before, he was not really someone you wanted to be trapped in close quarters with. And he was rapidly approaching you. 

“Hey there babe, name’s Ed,” he said, gesturing lazily to himself. “I’ve been waiting for a hot girl for ages!” 

Oh god. You weren’t sure how to get out of this. You looked around, hoping to make eye contact with somebody, anybody who would come help you. Most people seemed to be avoiding your eyes, until you noticed a girl who looked like she was in late elementary school with dirty blonde hair coming towards you and Ed. 

“Hi, I’m Alicia, but call me Ali!” she spoke cheerily to you, grabbing your arm and dragging you, very willingly on your part, away from Ed. 

“Butt out, you brat! Can’t you see we were talking!?” Ed protested angrily, turning to follow you and Ali. 

She turned back to him and stuck her tongue out. “You butt out, Ed. If you’re mean to her, I’ll tell mom!” 

You watched Ed clench his fists, growling probably rude things under his breath, but he didn’t follow you any further. 

Ali took you to a room marked 3F and 4F. The inside was fairly simple, two beds and dressers, and further into the room an adjoining washroom. One bed had a book and pink stuffed cat beside it, and the other, which was barren, you assumed to be yours. 

“Um...” You turned to face the girl who had sat on her own bed, introducing yourself to her before getting to your questions. “What is this? I thought I was coming here to take some drug and then leave?” 

The girl nodded. “We’re testing my parents’ drug. But they want us to stay here for a while after so they can see if it works or not.” 

“Your parents?” you clarified. 

“Yep,” she answered. “That lady who brought you in is my mom. She doesn’t like Ed, so if I told her to kick him out she would. So just tell me if he tries anything!” 

“Oh, sure,” you replied. Hopefully the threat of losing his five thousand dollars would keep Ed away from you. 

“How long have you been here?” you asked her. 

“A few days, you’re the last one to get here and then tonight we start the tests!” she answered proudly. “My mom says that if this goes well, the company will do good!” 

You smiled back, unwilling to ruin her good mood. What parent lets their own kid participate in a drug trial? 

“Are you hungry?” she asked, and you found yourself starving since you were too nervous to eat breakfast that morning in anticipation. After seeing your nod, she leapt off of her bed and you followed her back out into the common area. 

Happily enough, Ed was nowhere to be seen. “If he doesn’t get his way he goes to sulk,” Ali stated after noticing you looking around the room warily. 

It seemed Ed’s assertion was right, you were the only girl here who wasn’t a child or a senior citizen. Two old women were sitting in front of a provided television watching some old show, while three men were sitting at a table playing cards. 

“How many of us are there?” you asked Ali. 

“Ummm,” she took a second. “Eight, including you and me!” 

You followed her as she skipped over to the kitchen, pulling out a plate of pancakes. “I made these! My brother showed me how to last year!” she exclaimed excitedly, gesturing towards a stack of plates in the kitchen cabinet. 

After adding your desired toppings, you and Ali went to sit down on a couch. As you ate, you began wondering exactly how long this clinical trial was. Did you need to let people know you’d be away for a while? You pulled out your cellphone, but there was no reception. Awesome. 

“How long is the trial going to be?” you asked Ali. 

“A week, my mom said, starting today when they give us the drug,” she answered, sitting cross-legged on the couch. “She said it makes you super strong! I can’t wait to see Chase’s face when I beat him at wrestling when I’m super strong!” 

You recalled what she said earlier. “Is that your brother?” 

“Yep,” she agreed. “He always wins when we wrestle, but he’s gonna be so surprised!” 

You laughed, that was a pretty weird reason to agree to a drug trial, but she seemed excited about it. So this was some sort of strength-enhancing drug. Those two old ladies by the tv would sure benefit from that. But really, worst case scenario nothing would happen and you’d be the same. If it got to the clinical trial stage, it would have to be largely free from side effects. 

 

You spent the next few hours hanging out with Ali, who was happy to have another girl to talk to that was within half a century of her age. She didn’t have any further information to provide you about the drug trial, or any procedures, but you got to hear a lot more about her family. 

Her mother and father were the engineers of the drug, and the creators of the company. From what it sounded like, they weren’t around a lot, and Ali was homeschooled on a different floor of the building. Her brother seemed to be around your age, and according to Ali, he stopped living at the complex a few years before, and she would only see him occasionally because he didn’t get along with their parents. 

A while after the two of you had begun talking, the door to the room was opened and Ali’s mother walked in, followed by a few other men and women in lab coats, holding briefcases. 

A man with white-blond hair cropped close to his head and a pair of thickly rimmed glasses stepped forward while the others stayed still. “I need everyone to line up, males and females in separate lines.” 

His voice was loud and commanding and brought even Ed out from his room to stand at the front of the line. As he walked to the male line, he noticed your gaze on him and licked his lips in an unsettling manner as he stared back. Quickly, you looked away and returned your gaze to the group of researchers. 

The two old ladies were at the start of the women’s line, followed by Ali and then you. You watched as the first person in the men’s and women’s lines were called forward by teams of two researchers, one who made sure the person stayed straight, and the other removed a syringe from the briefcase they were holding and carefully administered the syringe into the person’s upper arm. 

It all seemed to be going normal, the people who got their shots were allowed to go back to what they were doing, and the next person in line was called. You watched this process happen twice before Ali was called up for her dose. 

“Hi mom and dad!” she called out, to mostly no reaction from her parents except them ushering her towards the research technicians who would administer her shot. 

Ali looked a bit nervous once they took hold of her arm and sanitized a spot clean to inject her dose of blue-green liquid into. She turned her head back to look at you and you gave her a smile you hoped would reassure her. She was excited to be _super strong_ , but she was still just a twelve-year-old girl who was scared of shots. Upon seeing your smile, she smiled widely back at you before turning to face the people giving her the shot. 

“I’m gonna be super strong and wrestle Chase!” she announced, to a nod from the man giving her injection and little other response. With all the determination in her little body, she stood still and allowed herself to be given the dose, and with that, it was now your turn. 

“Don’t worry, it didn’t hurt too bad!” Ali told you as she walked back past you. “You can do it!” 

You thanked her, hoping it wasn’t as bad as she said. You were hoping that this drug would be in pill form, but got unlucky in the reality that it would be a shot. A twelve-year-old girl did it, you reassured yourself, so you can do it too. 

You stepped forward as you were called up and the man took your arm, rolling your sleeve up to expose your upper arm. You stood as still as you could. 

“We’re going to start the injection,” the woman holding your arm still told you, before you felt a prick at the side of your upper arm, and after a few seconds the man stepped away from you, placing the used needle back into the carrying case. 

“Done?” Ali’s mom asked, and when all of the workers nodded at her she waved a hand towards the door and they all began to file out one by one, leaving just her and her husband in the room with the eight of you. 

“You are to let us know if you are experiencing any symptoms, both negative or positive. There is a button on each of your night tables and if you want to report something to us, press it and we will come.” 

She really wasn’t a talker, since as soon as she had said her piece, she turned and left the room without regard or a goodbye to her daughter who was biting her lip in obvious disappointment. With a quick look around at all of you, her husband wrote something down on a clipboard before leaving. 

This poor little girl. You turned to look at Ali, who was trying desperately to not show how upset she was on her face, picking at her clothes in a futile effort to stay calm. 

“Hey, Ali?” she looked up at you. “Can you teach me how to make those pancakes?” 

Her face lit up with a smile. “Sure! I’m really good at them!” 

You followed her over to the kitchen while the others resumed their previous activities. Hopefully your newfound super-strength didn’t kick in while you were making pancakes, but you were doubtful you would see much of a change. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I promise the boy will be in the next chapter! Right at the start! I will try to upload it by the end of the weekend!

The pancakes you made with Ali had turned out pretty well, and you didn’t mind eating the same meal twice in one day if it meant cheering up the little blonde girl with shitty parents. 

Ali had gone to bed around nine o’clock, but you weren’t tired yet so you decided to look around the common area, which you soon regretted. 

“Nobody’s in my room right now, how about it?” Ed was at your side pretty much as soon as Ali had left, beat up tank top now containing a red-brown stain of unknown origin. 

“I’m fine, thank you.” You tried dodging him politely, but unfortunately your politeness didn’t seem to dissuade Ed in the slightest. 

“I’m real good, babe. You know you want this,” he said, gesturing to... you weren’t sure, his protruding stomach that was almost touching you he was so close? 

“I’m fine,” you repeated, and walked quickly over to the two old ladies who were now both working on the same book of crossword puzzles. “Do you need some extra help?” 

“Sure,” one of the ladies agreed, and then turned to Ed as he followed you over to them. “Edward, dear, did you want to help? Because neither of us can remember the capitol of Wisconsin.” 

Ed gave her a very dumb look at that, his eyes narrowing and jaw going slack. “She should be gettin' it on with me, not doing some stupid crossword for old bats!” 

The other old lady gave him a very unhappy look, her eyes narrowed and mouth tilted down in a frown. “The capitol of Wisconsin, Ed?” she probed. 

“Ugh!” Ed stormed halfway across the main area towards his room before he turned around, pointing a finger at you. “You just wait, soon you won’t be able to resist me!” he shouted, turning around and storming the rest of the way to his shared room. You felt bad for whoever was sharing a room with that jerk. 

“He hasn’t gotten desperate enough to fight two old ladies,” one of them joked and you and the other old lady laughed. 

“Thank you, I didn’t know what to do about him,” you told them. 

They shook their heads. “It’s no problem, dear. Us ladies must look out for each other... now do you happen to know the capitol of Wisconsin? I wasn’t kidding when I asked that oaf for his assistance.” 

You spent the rest of your night talking to Rose and Ethel, as they introduced themselves. The three men other than Ed seemed quiet and kept to themselves. They had been playing cards all day and only talking to each other. 

“Don’t mind them,” Rose had said. “They’ve been like that since they all got here yesterday. Boys and their card games.” 

“So everyone got here at different times?” you asked her. 

She nodded her head. “Poinsettia,” she said to Ethel, who quickly wrote the word down in the black spaces of three across, before answering you. “That little girl was the first one here, then Ed, three days ago. Then me and Ethel two days ago, and those men yesterday. And of course, you here today.” 

“Did they say why they needed us at different times?” 

Ethel laughed. “Sweetie, that lady doesn’t tell us anything. We’re just here to collect our money and go double our winnings at bingo!” 

You wouldn’t mind some bingo either, anything to spice up the monotony you had been stuck with all day, and if this went on all week it might start to feel like a prison instead of a medical trial. Half an hour later, it became too late for Rose and Ethel, who said their goodnights to you and then both headed into their shared room, leaving the crossword puzzle behind on the table. 

You picked it up, trying to figure out some of the leftover clues, but none of the answers were coming to you and you couldn’t search it on your connection-less phone, so you gave up and headed back into your room quietly, so as to not wake Ali as well as not alert Ed to your position. 

Maybe something exciting would happen tomorrow. Maybe you would wake up and be super strong and then if Ed tried to mess with you, you would punch him! On second thought, those logistics wouldn’t really work out in your favor if Ed was super strong too. On that note, you climbed into your bed and got under the covers, hoping that this would be a fast medical trial and you could go home with your money and find an actual job. 

 

You woke up to a scream. You were disoriented, it almost felt like you didn’t hear it. But you did. A male scream, so clearly not from Ali, who you then heard calling your name, sounding scared. 

Trying to force yourself fully awake, you looked at the time on the clock, which said that it was four in the morning. Looking over, you found Ali huddled in her blanket, sitting up on her bed. “What is that?” she asked, sounding every bit of the frightened little girl she was. 

Another scream, clearly from the area and assumedly from one of the guys participating in the trial. 

“It’s probably a nightmare, Ali. He’s having a nightmare.” You really wanted to dismiss this and go back to sleep, four in the morning was too early to be dealing with this. 

Yet another scream. This time it was a woman’s and was mixed with other raised voices, and a “What the fuck!?” which could only belong to Ed. 

Groaning internally, you decided to get up, just in case it was some emergency. “I’ll be right back,” you said, making your way over to the door when your sleeve was grabbed by Ali. 

“Please don’t leave me by myself,” she pleaded, looking like she was about to cry. 

“Okay,” you agreed, taking her hand. “You can come, but you have to go back to the room if anything scary is happening, okay?” 

“Okay!” she agreed, squeezing your hand as the two of you made your way into the common area. 

When you got there, the whole area was harshly bright for the time of night it was, and you saw a group of five of the other residents all crowding around something. Taking note of who was there, you counted the three men, Ed, and... just Rose. 

“What’s going on?” you called out, interrupting their bickering. 

They all turned to face you and Ali, and Ed was the first to speak. He came towards you in just his boxers, which he had been sleeping in, which really didn’t help the situation. 

“I’m getting the fuck out of here is what is happening!” he shouted, rushing towards the exit door, which was obviously locked. He began pounding on the door, screaming to be let out, with no reply, as you walked over to the rest of the group. 

“What’s...” you trailed off as the group parted to let you see Ethel, who was laying on the floor, turned away from you. “What happened to Ethel? Why haven’t you guys helped her up?” 

Your question was answered as Ethel rolled over and you saw that her eyes were grey. No pupils, no irises, no eyes at all it seemed, just completely grey sockets. Her skin was also sallow, and it looked like she was dead, and had been dead for some time. But that wasn’t possible, you had been with her only a few hours ago, and she definitely looked alive then. 

You jumped back as Ethel’s mouth dropped open in a loud, animalistic growl and her old body made a lunge at your group. Everyone else jumped back as well. 

“What’s going on?” one of the men exclaimed. 

“She was just laying out here like that, I don’t know how she got here,” another man stammered nervously. 

“We need to leave, there is no way-” the last man added, before he began to choke. 

He began to hack and cough, looking like he couldn’t breathe, before a guttural scream made its way through his throat. 

“What the hell?” one of the other guys exclaimed, backing away from him. 

So now you had two issues. Ethel with her creepy grey eye sockets and deathlike skin was still inching towards the group from her place on the floor, and now this guy was having what you could only presume was some kind of weird panic attack. “We should get him-” 

You couldn’t finish your sentence as spikes that looked like they were made from bone began to burst through the man’s outer arms on both sides. Everyone backed away from him at that, and you made sure to keep Ali behind you. He screamed out last time loudly as the whites of his eyes seeped out and left only a grey residue behind, his eyes seeping out onto the floor beneath him. He was blinded and howling in pain for a few more seconds as more spikes ripped through the sides of his legs, until he collapsed in a heap. 

Ed, who had backed against the door at the sight of what had happened to the other man, began banging at the door again. “Get me the fuck out of here!” he bellowed. 

There was a loud discussion in the living area, and between the men debating what to do, Rose crying at the loss of her friend, and Ali gripping your hand tightly in terror, you weren’t sure what to do. 

“Is it the drug?” one of the men announced. “Did they do this to us? Are we going to turn into those things?” he said, gesturing with his head towards the two bodies on the ground. 

You had taken Ali to one of the couches, trying to calm her down, which was very hard at the moment. 

“It’s okay, Ali. We’re going to call your mom and dad and they’ll come help us,” you said, hoping that what you were saying was true. If their drugs had crazy side effects, they would come get you out before it happened to you? Before it happened to their own daughter? 

You were so out of it, you didn’t hear Ali calling your name. When you snapped out of your own anxious thoughts, you looked at Ali to see that she was looking to an area behind you and let out a shrill scream. 

The two men who were still somewhat close to the bodies, looked at Ali when she screamed. Which made them too late to notice the scene behind them. 

As if they were marionettes being moved by strings, the bodies of Ethel and the man slowly rose to their feet. 

“They’re... they’re...!” you couldn’t bring yourself to finish the words in your panic, which further doomed the two men as Ethel and their friend descended upon them. 

Immediately, you grabbed Ali’s arm and dragged her off the couch as the terrified screams of the men rang out when the two zombified creatures descended on them, teeth and spikes and all digging into their flesh. 

You wanted to worry about Rose, but you didn’t have the time as the two zombies quickly became four, eyes melting into grey ooze and spikes popping out of their bodies. Their empty grey eye sockets could not see, that you were sure of, but they seemed to still sense you and Ali somehow, and began to come at you. 

“Run, Ali!” you screamed, dragging her back towards your shared room. Ali was now openly crying in terror as she ran along with you and away from those creatures. 

You both ran into your room, with you quickly slamming and locking the door. You knew that wouldn’t keep them out forever, especially with those unnatural spikes jutting from their bodies. You had no time at all and had to think of a plan, which was only complicated by the animal-like noises that were rapidly approaching, in tune with the shuffling of bodies and the scraping of their spikes against the walls of the narrow hallway. 

“Mommy! Mommy please!” Ali was at her bed table button, rapidly pressing it with no visible reactions. 

You wanted to believe that her mom would come, you really did. But how would she get past all these spiky zombies? You were probably going to have to take things into your own hands. 

Before you had time to think, you heard a new noise from outside. “Let me in!” 

Ed. Just what you needed right now. 

“Let me in you dumb bitch! You’re just going to let me die!?” he demanded, hammering on the door. 

You didn’t want to help him, but you also didn’t want to damn him to death just because he was an old pervert. As you were contemplating opening the door, his yelling was overtaken by his screams. In a matter of seconds, the creatures were upon him. Mind made up, you turned to Ali. 

“Ali, we have to look around the room. Tell me if you see anything that can help us!” you directed her, but she was still crying at the button, her tears dropping off her face and into her lap. 

“Ali!” you shouted, and she looked up at you. “I need you to help me! I can’t do this without your help!” 

Ali’s face hardened, and she brought up a hand to wipe the tears from her face. “Okay!” she agreed, sniffling but still going down on her hands and knees to search under the beds. 

The scraping noises were against the door now, the groaning louder than you could bear with your current level of stress. 

“There...” You heard Ali say with a tear-induced hiccup. “There’s a vent under my bed! I think it’s big enough for us!” she called out. 

You moved over to her bed as she crawled out from under it. You moved her bed to the side to reveal an older-looking vent. You had no screwdriver, but maybe some of that weird drug-induced strength would kick in. Though after seeing what it had done to the other people in the trial, you were hoping it just stayed clear of messing with you at all. With all the strength you could muster, you kicked the vent; first a dent appeared, and then you cleanly kicked the vent off its hinges.  

Pulling the vent away, you and Ali got down on your hands and knees. The vent was small, but it was just enough for you and definitely enough for a little girl to get through. You signaled Ali to go in first, and she did, crawling into the vent easily. 

“Don’t stop, no matter what,” you told her as you crawled in behind her. 

You heard her sniffles and tried to think of words to reassure her, but as you heard the door of your room break open, all you could hope was that the zombies weren’t smart enough to think of crawling through a vent, or that their spikes wouldn’t let them fit. 

You had been crawling along in the vent, making turns and climbing down for what felt like forever, but was probably around thirty-five minutes when Ali stopped and called your name. 

“What?” you answered. 

“I see light!” she announced. 

“Okay, move to the side a bit,” you instructed her, and when she complied, you took your foot and brought it over to the light pouring through the vent in front of the both of you, and savagely kicked at it until it broke open. You were nervous about what might be out there, but it had to be better than staying in a vent until you starved or turned into one of those things. While you were still able, you had to do your best to find help for Ali and yourself. 

Ali crawled out first, and you quickly followed and found yourselves in a dark hallway, which lit up when you stood up. 

You looked around; there was really nothing around, so the two of you walked down the hallway, Ali very close behind you. 

“What if we turn into those things?” she asked you quietly. “I don’t want to be one of those.” 

“You won’t,” you told her. “We won’t. We’ll find help.” 

You would believe that as long as you could. You couldn’t lose hope now, or you and the little girl were done for. 

You finally came to a stairwell, the writing above stating that this was floor B30. You had somehow gotten to the bottom floor of the building. “Okay, we just need to go up these stairs to the top floor and then we can leave here and get help!” 

Opening the stairway, you didn’t get far before there was a sinister scraping noise. You couldn’t really see much beyond the staircase to level B29 that you were halfway up, until it turned the corner. 

It looked like an it at first, because all you could see was a large hand and forearm that was webbed with large claws. You were ready to back up when the rest of the creature turned the corner, and you found that the arms were the most creature-like part of it at the moment. Or rather, him. 

“Ed?” you exclaimed. 

It was still Ed, somewhat. His hands and forearms had grown massive, the skin between the fingers webbed with large black claws on them. The arms tapered into smaller upper arms and shoulders, each shoulder having a large black spike protruding from it. The whites of his eyes were grey but he still retained the rest of his eyes. His boxers were still on, thankfully, but they were ripped from large holes on his upper thighs where large black spikes had also protruded from. He was also turning vaguely green, the largest amount of the color concentrated on the parts of his body where spikes were. 

“You...” he garbled, voice distorting from the effort of speaking. “You left me. And now, now I’m gonna have you. Don’t care what no scientist bitch has to say!” by the end of his statement, his garbled words had turned into a screeching as he climbed down the stairs more and more rapidly. 

“Ali!” you screamed. “Go!” 

The two of you took off immediately, running back down the half flight of stairs you had descended. As fast as you could, you opened the door and burst into the hallway, quickly running in the direction you had left with Ali hot on your heels. 

Sprinting around the corner past where the vent was, you found a slightly-ajar door. The horrible screams from Ed about what he was going to do to you when he caught you rang out behind you as you and Ali rushed in the door, with you closing it as quietly as you could to hope Ed would go past you. 

There were loud stomps in the hallway coming towards you and you felt a shiver run down your spine as you crouched on the floor, more out of fear than necessity. You were just a girl, and definitely not one that went to the gym 12 hours a day to be able to stand up to a monster like that. If he caught you two, you were done. 

The stomping outside continued as Ed patrolled back and forth. “You can’t hide from me, I can smell you! You’ll taste good I bet!” he yelled as he continued to storm back and forth also the hallway just outside the room you were in. 

You shuddered; you felt so useless. What were you supposed to do about this hulking monster outside. You almost jumped when he banged a heavy fist against the wall a few feet away from the room you were in. “If you’re in that vent, there’s nowhere for you to go but back to those zombies or into my arms!” Ed yelled with a bark of terrifying laughter. 

Maybe you could wait this out. Maybe he would think you escaped and leave. You and Ali would be fine, you assured yourself. 

You heard a small female moan of pain. “Ali...?” you called out, looking over at her. 

“I feel bad...” she said quietly, clutching her arms to her chest. You could see a greyish sheen start to take to her skin. 

You swore out loud. No, this wasn’t happening. She was probably just feeling sick from the stress, she was going to be fine. You could wait this mess with Ed out and he’d leave and you two would be fine. 

You heard a soft rip as a lavender-hued spike ripped through her elbow joint and she cried out. 

The sound attracted the stomping back in your direction. “No, Ali...” 

You reached out for her, but with what little strength she had, she pushed your hand away. “No. It’s too late for me. I won’t let this happen to you because you touched me!” 

As her voice picked up into a yell at the end of her sentence, spikes tore through her body, all along her arms and legs and back. Her dirty blonde hair turned a sickly green and plastered itself to her head and her skin shifted from grey to a lizard-like green and her eyes turned grey, her irises changing from a soft green to a bright green, looking like green rings in the otherwise dark room. 

She let out an inhuman scream as a tail ripped through the back of her clothing, dotted with the same purple spikes that decorated the rest of her. Her mouth pulled back into a fearsome jaw with razor-sharp teeth, and her nails grew into deep purple claws which were longer than your fingers. 

“I feel it,” she said, hard to understand due to her new teeth. “I’m hungry.” 

Your eyes widened. “Ali, please, we can still get you out of here.” 

“No!” she snarled. “I can feel my thoughts going away. I just want to eat you,” she insisted. “Please, open that door and I’ll fight Ed, I feel so much stronger now. You have to run.” 

“No, Ali, I can’t...” you protested. This little girl was counting on you to save her, and you let this happen to her. You failed her, but you could still try to protect her. 

Ali stood up roughly, limping over to the door, and you noticed she was several feet taller in this new form. “Please,” she said one last time, speech a significant effort with her new mouth mutations. “Run.” 

And with that, she turned away from you as you felt tears brim your eyes. This wasn’t fair, this little girl didn’t deserve her mind being taken over by whatever this drug was, and she certainly didn’t deserve being turned into a spiky reptile monster. And you had whatever that was injected into her in you too, how long did you have before that happened to you? 

Ali got to the door, her newly-formed tail violently thrashing behind her and she burst through the door, not bothering to unlock it and instead breaking it open with her newfound strength. You heard a triumphant shout from down the hall: Ed had clearly heard the sound of the door breaking off its hinges and crashing into the wall opposite. 

The once-dark room was now filled with the light from the hallway outside. With the light illuminating the room, you took a quick look around, knowing you did not have long, since Ali could still lose her mind and turn on you at any time. Quickly, she dashed out, and you heard a very inhuman screech, as well as a yell that sounded like Ed. You heard the noises of both former-humans as they fought, and knew you had no time to waste. 

Surveying the room, you found that it was an office space, with multiple file cabinets. At one of the desks in the room, you found a recently-open file. Rushing over to look in it for any useful information, you saw that it was a print-out of an email titled _Known Mutations_. 

_The_ _Knight Anole_ _serum has shown mixed results. If the subject is of ordinary DNA structure, the virus will cause the subject to go blind and may also create enhanced bone fragments which burst out of the skin in a spike-like form. The subject will die quickly, but the mutations created seem to be able to sustain after death, leaving the subject in an animal-like state where they will go after living beings. Even without their sight, these creatures have been easily able to locate living creatures within short to mid radiuses. I think I have found a type of semi-rare DNA mutation which creates the possibilities of more advanced creatures. I will have this theory ready to present while we are acquiring candidates._  

The email was signed Raymond Hayes. The name didn’t seem familiar to you. There were more pages beneath the email you had read, but the sounds of the fight outside made you realize you didn’t have time for this. You needed to escape first and then you could read more of these, because it sure sounded like they injected you with a dangerous virus on purpose. 

Closing the file and picking it up, you held it close to your chest as you crept over to the doorframe that was now minus a door. Peeking out, you saw the fight. It seemed Ali had made sure that the way to the stairs was open for you as she was fighting him just down the hallway in the other direction. It had become bloody, the mutated man and preteen girl each slashing at each other, although Ali had the advantage because she was smaller and more able to dash around him and inflict more damage. 

She was doing a good job of distracting him, and silently thanking her, you braced yourself and dashed out of the office towards the stairs. You heard a cry of anger from Ed as you ran at full speed. 

“Not getting away from me!” he howled, and you heard heavy footsteps in your direction. 

You heard another one of the high pitched screams, turning your head back to see Ali jump up onto Ed’s head, her new claws scratching at Ed’s eyes as he screamed in pain and tried to pry her off of him. Her bright green eyes locked onto yours with desperation. “Go!” she shouted, which at the end of the sentence turned into more of an animalistic growl, and you didn’t need to be told twice as you continued down the hall and to the stairs. 

Ripping open the door, you sprinted as fast as you could up the stairs, adrenaline kicking in big time as you desperately raced to escape whatever this was. You had only gotten up to B27 before your exhaustion caught up to you. You didn’t hear Ed, and you didn’t know if this virus had broken out on the other floors or not, so the stairwell seemed as good a place as any to rest. You sat down, leaning against the wall. You had only slept for a few hours, and you really couldn’t resist your tiredness any more, and you allowed your eyes to close, only hoping that Ali had beat Ed and stopped him from chasing you. 


	3. Chapter 3

You were so tired that you slept soundly with no nightmares as even your brain was too exhausted to come up with anything worse than the reality you were living with right now. 

You awoke slowly, hearing a noise from nearby which roused your foggy mind from sleep. It took you a second to remember your situation; was the noise Ed? It sounded quieter than Ed was, and if he was still around, he would be screaming taunts again, you were sure of it. You kept your eyes closed in case it was a zombie and hoped that it thought you were dead. 

“Another one... she doesn’t look like an employee though,” a soft male voice said from suddenly very close to you. 

You opened your eyes to find a boy crouched in front of you who was assumedly examining your body. Except you weren’t dead. 

“Whoa!” he fell back on his palms in surprise. “I thought you were dead.” 

You were sure you looked like it at this point. You looked over the boy as he stood up and brushed himself off. He had sandy blonde hair which was cut short at the back of his head and left long at the top and sides, with bangs falling over his forehead to sit just above his eyebrows. He had light green eyes and a strong jawline that was free of stubble. He was wearing jeans and athletic shoes with a black shirt under a black jacket and was a good amount taller than you and lightly muscled. And was also staring at you funny because you were checking him out instead of listening to what he was saying to you. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching a hand out to help you stand up, which you took. He didn’t seem like a bad guy or zombie, at least for now. 

“Yeah, I just...” How were you supposed to explain what happened? Would he even believe you? 

“I know.” He sighed and looked away from you for a second before his gaze returned. “I saw the zombies.” 

You were relieved, okay, so this wasn’t a mental breakdown. But somehow a mental breakdown seemed better. 

“Were you part of the medical trial?” he asked you as if the idea had just come to him, and you nodded, unsure of what else to add as his eyes desperately searched yours and his hand grabbed your arm, staring intently at you. “Have you seen a girl named Alicia Hayes? She wasn’t supposed to be a part of this and I need to get her out of here.” 

Your mind went blank and your eyes went wide. “Are you her brother...?” you asked hesitantly, not wanting to hear the answer you knew was coming as he acknowledged that he was. 

You wrapped your arms around yourself, sinking back down the wall until you were sitting again, shaking your head and not wanting to tell Ali’s brother that she had spoken of so excitedly exactly what had happened to her. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, diving forward. 

You couldn’t say it. You couldn’t tell him. What would he do if he knew his sister was a lizard-monster now? 

“Hey!” He put a hand on either of your cheeks and forced you to look at him. “I didn’t ask your name. What’s your name?” 

The question focused you a bit and you told him your name. “I’m Chase,” he replied. “Please tell me what happened to my sister.” 

He deserved to know, and you knew that you had to tell him. So you did. Starting with your arrival at the facility, you told him about you meeting Ali, about spending time with her, and then moving on to the early-morning zombie wakeup call where you and Ali had escaped through a vent. And finally, very reluctantly, telling him about Ed coming after you. 

“Ed?” Chase probed. 

“He was this creepy guy from the trial who wouldn’t leave me alone. But he didn’t look like the other zombies. He had giant arms and was green and had spikes coming out from everywhere and-” 

“Where is my sister?” Chase asked in blunt seriousness. 

You didn’t want to be the person to tell him about this, but you were the only one who knew, aside from Ed, and you were really hoping he died back there and Ali had escaped unharmed. So you explained your escape with Ali into the office, where she had complained about feeling badly before her transformation had started. Chase remained silent while you told him the full story, but his expression went from serious to devastated in rapid time. 

“She mutated?” he asked after you were done, eyes on the floor. 

“Yes,” you reluctantly admitted. “She told me to run away while she held Ed off.” 

“She’s too stubborn,” Chase said slowly. “Do you know where she is?” 

“Back down on floor B30,” you told him. “But Ed is down there. And she told me her mind was telling her to eat me. I don’t think it’s safe-” 

“She’s my sister, I have to go,” Chase replied, turning in the direction of the stairs down. “Just try to get to safety.” 

Chase had taken only a few steps when the air was pierced with the sound of a loud crash coming from below you, followed by a guttural monstrous bellow that could only belong to one person. You immediately stood up, eyes wide in terror. 

“What-” Chase turned to you. 

“Ed!” you screamed. “That was Ed!” 

Chase looked back in the direction of the noise as you both heard rapidly ascending footsteps. Chase grit his teeth and turned back to you. “We have to get out of here then, if he’s as bad as you made him sound.” 

You were frozen in your panic, and it took Chase grabbing your hand and pulling you along for you to move. He dragged you up the stairs and you tried your best to keep up with him once your feet started cooperating. 

“I just came from B27. It’s crawling with more of those things,” he informed you quickly as he continued pulling you up the stairs. 

“I’ll find you! I’ll find you!” came the repeated warped-sounding cry from a few flights of stairs below you, but rapidly catching up to you. 

You didn’t have enough time to get all the way up, Ed would catch you easily. After only one flight of stairs, Chase rushed you two towards the door that read B26, pulling it open and rushing inside. 

You found yourself in a hallway that branched off to what looked like multiple laboratories, but the hallway was dark as the lights seemed to have broken on this floor. There was a bit of light from the labs that littered the area, but the hallway lights were entirely out, covering most of the area in a pitch-black darkness. 

The two of you walked along silently, working your eyes to their limits to help you spot any wandering zombies in the dark. With you unable to really see, it put them at an advantage with their supposed enhanced senses. Oh right, the file. In your haste to escape, you had forgotten it back in the stairway. Hopefully you could go back to get it at some point, since it likely had important information in it. 

Through your still-connected hands, Chase opened the door of one of the labs, looking inside quickly before pulling you in with him. 

“Stay down,” he instructed as the nearby door to the stairway was knocked off its hinges, falling to the ground as the mutated Ed stepped over it. 

You and Chase locked eyes with each other after seeing the creature walk in and both quickly hid under a table. 

“You weren’t kidding,” Chase whispered. “Does Ali look like that too?” he added, seemingly to himself. 

It didn’t seem like a question posed to you, but you would answer him anyways. “No,” you replied. “She has green hair and a tail and more spikes than Ed does.” 

Chase nodded somberly. “I just hope there’s a way to reverse this.” 

You slowly nodded in response, you really did not want to turn into one of those creatures, blind and only existing to kill. Or in another case, be stuck like Ed or Ali. None of it seemed like a good option. 

Chase’s head shot up for a moment, looking like he remembered something. “Wait, you said you were in the medical trial?” he whispered as you could hear Ed’s footsteps and yelling outside in the hallways. “Does that mean you were...?” 

You knew what he was getting at, you couldn’t avoid thinking about it yourself as you let your head droop to rest on your knees where you sat under the table. “Yeah. They injected me too.” 

You thought Chase would run away from you, shoot you, anything, but he just exhaled sadly. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

Sorry for what, you couldn’t help but think? Sorry that he was going to run away and let you mutate and be stuck here with Ed while he left? 

“It’s my fault this happened to you,” he admitted bitterly. 

“What?” you couldn’t help but say out loud, maybe a bit too loud. You covered your mouth with your hands, eyes meeting Chase’s as Ed’s footsteps still rang out in the general area, but he didn’t seem to have heard your outburst. 

“No, no, not like that!” Chase protested, seeing your accusing gaze. “I didn’t create the virus. But my parents wanted to test it on me.” 

Your mouth dropped open a bit in surprise and you closed it, biting your lip as you let him continue to speak. 

“They said that my genes were very compatible with the drug. I didn’t know it was a virus then,” he explained. 

“You didn’t want to test it?” you asked. 

He stared into space, head pointed towards one of the lab desks in the room. “My parents don’t care about me and Ali. All they care about is their research, which is why I moved out as soon as I could. I wasn’t about to do them a favor and I didn’t regret my decision... until Ali messaged me to say that they told her she got to test out a new medicine that would make her really strong.” 

“She’s just a kid!” he lamented. “She didn’t need to be doing a drug trial, so I came here to put a stop to it and pull her out. The reception desk was empty when I came in and I started exploring floors trying to find her. And then I saw those zombies and I knew. Our parents are far too greedy to waste their time on making a medicine to help people. I should have known that they’d do something like this. But I didn’t, and because I didn’t, I let this happen to my little sister.” 

You weren’t sure what to say to that, but you knew you had to say something. “It’s not your fault... your parents are to blame. They made the virus and tested it on innocent people.” 

Chase’s turned his gaze to you. “You should be mad at me. It’s my fault that they tested this on you too.” 

You forced a laugh, licking your lips nervously because you could not forget the danger you were in, you could still turn at any moment. “I wanted the five thousand dollars. I should have known it was too good to be true!” 

He gave you a small, sad smile, eyes resolute. “Since it’s my fault this happened to you, I won’t leave you. If I can’t save Ali, there’s still time to find a cure for you.” 

“I...” You didn’t even think about a cure. They must have made one. What if one of them got infected by accident? There had to be a cure somewhere. You needed some information... which you had left in the stairway. “I got a file from an office downstairs. It was talking about what happens when people are given the virus. There were more pages, but I forgot it back where I was resting.” 

“Well it’ll be a good start to figuring out where the cure is,” Chase agreed, but the ominous footsteps passed by the room you were hiding in again as Ed continued to yell to you, voice sounding more and more distorted. 

“We can’t get them if he’s out there,” you said. 

Chase gave you a serious look. “And you might not have enough time for us to wait him out. I’ll go, it might take a while, but I’ll be back.” 

“No!” you protested. “It’s fine, don’t worry about me. You should just get out of here while you can. I don’t want to turn into a zombie and get you killed!” 

Chase had stood up by this point, reaching into a pocket of his jacket and pulling out a handgun. “If my parents did this to you, they’ll keep testing. I’m going to stop them now, and I’m not going to let some middle-aged zombie creep get in my way,” he declared, looking out through the long window on the side lab of the lab that bordered the hallway. 

“Is he coming?” you asked. You didn’t hear anything, but maybe Ed had somehow learned to be quiet. 

“No,” Chase answered. “I’m going to do this as fast as I can. If he finds me, I’ll run. I’d ask you to stay here if that happens, but I know you won’t have time. If he gets me, leave. Try and find the cure on your own.” 

“Okay...” You agreed reluctantly. It did help your case that he was armed, but you really hoped Ed wasn’t coming your way since it seemed like Chase was your best hope to get a cure and get out of here. 

After he made sure that you were listening to him, he set his focus to outside as he made his way over to the door quietly. After ten seconds he didn’t seem to hear any footsteps or yelling near the room, and so he opened the door quietly. 

You couldn’t help yourself as you quickly stood up, hiding to the side of the room so you could see down the hallway that led towards the stairs. You watched as he walked along the hallway, holding his gun up and ready to fire if needed. He stepped over the broken door that lay on the ground just outside the stairwell, and then disappeared from your vision. 

Right, the files were down a floor. Please don’t let Ed be patrolling the stairs, you hoped. Since you two had been hiding under a table, you hadn’t seen what Ed had been doing. You only heard his loud footsteps and shouted taunts, which were currently mysteriously absent. 

It had been quite a few minutes, longer than you thought would be necessary to walk down one flight of stairs and back up. Worries for Chase erupted in your thoughts and you were almost about to go looking for him when he appeared, walking up the last few steps of the stairs. 

At the same time, you immediately ducked out back and out of sight as you watched Ed coming up from the adjoining hallway and walking straight towards Chase. It made sense why Ed had stopped making noises; his feet seemed to have mutated the same way his hands had. They had grown significantly larger, tipped with claws and toes webbed. He was also walking on the walls of the hallway, moving silently. He passed by a lab and the flash of light on him also allowed you to notice a forked tongue, which was at least three times the size of a normal tongue and pitch black. 

You needed to warn Chase, but anything you did would bring Ed straight to you. Either way, you had to try. You immediately ducked down so Ed wouldn’t see you; you didn’t know how good his vision was with the mutation, but you weren’t willing to risk it. 

You found a computer at the back of the room. Chase was about to be ambushed, so you had no time to turn it on. Next to it, however, you found a large red button under a plastic case. Flipping the case off, you didn’t spare one more second of thought before pressing it. Chase needed something, anything to alert him to the dangerous creature that was getting closer to him as he walked up the stairs unknowingly into immediate danger. 

The lights in the lab turned red immediately, and defeaning sirens began blaring from all corners of the floor. You could hear them inside the lab, as well as outside. You looked back to the hallway as a loud thud echoed at the same level of noise as the sirens as Ed dropped down from the wall to walk the corridor on all four creepy limbs, turning around to do a full survey of the area, assumedly to figure out where this noise was coming from. 

You watched as Chase stiffened upon noticing the creature, and then looked over to see you openly panicking and trying to catch his attention. He put a finger to his lips quickly and then turned his eyes to watch Ed as he slowly slinked back to the lab. 

He had gotten three-quarters of the way when Ed turned around, body twitching as he rotated himself until he was in the perfect position to see the blonde boy creeping his way back to you. With a massive roar, he charged, but Chase had a head start and sprinted the last ten feet to the door, racing in and shutting it behind him. 

“Chase!” you called out, not worried about your volume now that Ed had already found you. 

“Yeah, I saw him!” he replied. “I’ve only seen the normal zombies, nothing that looked like that. He must have irregular genes for the virus to mutate him like that.” 

“Can we worry about his genes later?” you shouted, pointing at the window which Ed was rapidly approaching. 

Chase rushed over to your position by the computer at the back of the room as Ed came right up to the see-through window. He slowly stood up on two legs, his giant slimy hands pressing onto the glass as he slurred your name through his newly-mutated mouth full of sharp teeth and that black tongue you had spotted earlier. 

“Mine... found you,” he said, running his hands along the glass and leaving a trail of green slime in his wake. Seeing him up close, his skin had turned entirely a sick-looking green, except for his black spikes, tongue and claws. His eyes had also changed and become like Ali’s; a green ring in a grey pool. 

“What did you do to Ali?” Chase demanded, striding forward with his gun raised before you could hold him back. 

“Little girl... was an appetizer. I want her,” Ed replied, gnashing his teeth together and staring at you, his forked tongue reaching out to lick the glass in your direction as you unconsciously stepped back, bracing yourself against the desk the computer was at. 

He clearly wasn’t just going to leave, and you needed a plan. You flinched as he brought his head back, and now that you were focused on his movement you also noticed he had lost what little hair he had on his head his brow bone had become bigger and more caveman-like. You were hoping that the virus didn’t kick in at all, but you were really hoping it wouldn’t make you look like the monster just outside the window. 

Ed removed his hands from the window, which confused you for a second, before he brought them back and slammed them on the window. There was not even a dent, so he tried again. 

“That material is strong enough to hold him for a bit, but not forever,” Chase told you, not breaking his gaze from Ed as he held up his gun again. “When he breaks through, I’m going to shoot him. Run to the door and get ready to get out of here.” 

He sounded so confident that it gave you some confidence that finally something would go your way. You crept over to the side of the room where the door was and crouched down so you were not in full view. You watched as a crack appeared in the window as Ed kept smashing his fists on it. Then more cracks. He really was strong, you didn’t see any injuries on his hands that he had been smashing into the hard window. 

Finally, the cracks had splintered enough for Ed to strike one central punch and break one giant hole in the middle of the window and roared with deep, guttural laughter as he began to climb inside. 

As soon as his head poked through the large opening in the window, a loud noise went off as Chase smoothly fired a shot that hit Ed through one eye. Ed let out a horrifically loud screech that made your ears hurt as you quickly covered them. “You... You... Dead!” he bellowed. So his speech seemed to be getting worse. You didn’t mind the prospect of him not being able to talk, you thought angrily as Chase fired again. 

The eye that Chase had hit seemed entirely decimated, slime that you assumed was his eye before now splattered over that side of his face as he roared again, slamming a hand against the window and making the already big hole even bigger as he climbed in to more gunfire. 

Ed looked really mad, as he continued to advance despite Chase reloading quickly and firing at him again, striking him in the face, chest and head. And still Ed advanced, and Chase had to back up slightly to avoid Ed’s outstretched claws swiping at him. Unfortunately this meant that since Chase was on the side of the room with no door, Ed had effectively trapped him with no escape. Looking around, you saw a bunch of binders and office supplies. 

Quickly, you grabbed a binder and threw it at Ed, hitting him square in the back. Then another. As he turned to face you, he received a stapler and an office phone to the face. Growling at you, he advanced like the predator he was, flexing his clawed hands in excitement of finally getting to you. You backed up warily towards the door, knowing you didn’t have far to go before you’d have to run. 

Using your distraction, Chase began shooting Ed again. “Hey ugly, running away from me?” he taunted, aiming for the back of Ed’s head. He was quite effective too as you noticed a lot of bullet wounds in Ed, but he was still up somehow. 

“No!” Ed cried. “No!” he repeatedly howled as he all but forgot you to charge at Chase. It was a good  thing for the two of you that he had retained the same level of intelligence he possessed as a human or you’d be in much bigger danger. Once again, Chase was somewhat boxed in, but he’d saved you for the moment. 

You grabbed another binder, ready to play monkey in the middle with Ed, until you noticed him walking right by a white cylinder container that was in between two desks which had a big yellow sign on it and was labelled flammable and potentially explosive. 

He was right by it, halfway between you and Chase, when you yelled out. “Chase! Shoot that!”  

You pointed desperately to the container beside Ed as Chase strained himself to try and see what you were pointing at. You thought that maybe he didn’t see what you meant, but an explosion rang out that knocked you back again the wall, hitting your head and slumping over against the wall. 

 

Chase had dived out of the way as Ed’s massive body was flung in his direction from the explosion, crashing into the side wall and creating a massive crater in it. Chase got up from his position on the floor, not too badly damaged by the explosion minus a bruise or two.  

He slowly walked over to Ed, who was laying on the ground, unmoving. He was now able to take in his appearance; he really was grotesque. His limbs were all engorged and green, and his skin seemed to have taken on a slimy texture, and Chase could see some dark green scales beginning to grow on his now-bald head. He wasn’t sure what he had looked like as a human, but he was a hard thing to look at now. He felt bad that you had to put up with him in both states. 

He almost jumped. In his hurry to see if Ed was alive or not, he had completely forgotten to check on you. You hadn’t come over to him yet, and he didn’t notice you when he stood up. Abandoning the ugly creature, he dashed to the other side of the room, where he found you laying on the floor against a wall, not looking great but your chest was still rising and falling, so you were still alive. 

He called your name a few times, to no response. 

“Open your eyes!” he tried, and your body moved slightly under his touch, but then went still again. 

He desperately examined your form, seeing no issues. It looked like you had probably concussed yourself on the wall though, and you wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon. 

He abandoned you for the moment, fast walking back to Ed to check his condition. His heart froze for a second when he noticed the bullets he had shot at Ed being slowly pushed out. He was regenerating right in front of Chase’s eyes! 

He immediately grabbed the folder he had left on the ground and turned tail and went back to you. If that thing was still alive, and healing, there was no telling when he would wake up, but he would be looking for revenge. With that thought in mind, Chase picked your limp form up in his arms and exited the room through the door. 

He hadn’t been to this facility in a long time, but he knew there was a long path ahead of you. When he had been interested in his parents’ research, he had done an internship with their company, where they had practiced emergency drills. 

And unfortunately, he knew his parents cared more about their research than the people they employed, and the system they had in place allowed for five minutes to escape from the facility after an emergency alarm button was pressed before the elevator would lock and the facility would be on shut down. And the only people with override passes to the elevator were his parents, and they must have left the second the alarm went off, so his options were limited. 

But first, he had to get you somewhere safe to recover. He didn’t want to stress you out worse than you had been already, he was already worried that the virus within you would take advantage of your current state to mutate you sooner. He would put you somewhere safe, and then head out in search of an antidote. Even if you woke up by then, it would be too dangerous to take you with him with the trauma you had already suffered. 

Making his way up the stairs, he found that Ed has assumedly come out of floor 20B to chase you, because the stairs up to that level were crushed beyond recognition, blocking off the area unless you were an acrobat able to bridge the fifteen-foot gap. 

Chase went to the gym, but he had not done very well at the gymnastics unit in high school, so he turned back and took you down to 21B, opening the door and finding that it was a living sort of area. Maybe this was where the employee quarters were. When he had interned a few years ago at age 18, his parents didn’t allow him below floor B10, so this was all new to him. He knew now that this was clearly because they were testing a dangerous virus and didn’t want him to know. 

Chase turned a corner and paused, watching as a man in a lab coat came from the opposite corner at the end of the hallway. At least Chase assumed it was a man; they had spikes jutting out from all over their face, so much that it would be impossible to tell what their face originally looked like at all. The man walked sluggishly, bumping into the walls of the hallway without use of his eyes, as there were spikes in their place. 

Chase had encountered a few of these on his way to try and locate Ali, but he still wasn’t sure about their full capabilities, so he slinked back into the stairway as the man came closer. Ali... that was something that he didn’t want to think about right now. He needed to find her, no matter what state she was in after her fight with Ed, but that would have to wait until after he got you your cure. 

He held his breath as the man passed, and when he came closer, Chase confirmed his suspicions that this was not his dad. Not that his parents would be caught fraternizing with their employees on an employee dorm floor anyways. He readjusted you in his arms and walked back out, turning around the corner that the spike-face guy had come from and found a long hall with many doors with room numbers on them. 

He tried a few doors, but they were all locked. Finally, about five doors in, he found one that was unlocked, pulling it open softly and walking inside. 

The room was very barren, just enough to have a bed, bedside table and adjoining bathroom with only a toilet and a sink in it. He didn’t notice any blood or other substances, or any signs of a struggle. Seemed like whoever used this room had abandoned it because there were almost no possessions in it. 

He placed you on the bed and put the file folder on the table. He would have time to read through that later. 

Checking the time, he noticed it was late morning. He had come into the building a few hours ago, and he knew that neither of you could last very long if you were hungry, having those pains himself since he hadn’t eaten since the day before. This was a living quarters floor, there had to be a cafeteria or kitchen somewhere. It hadn’t been that long since the outbreak, according to you, so the food would still be good by now, and both of you really needed some. He shrugged off his black leather jacket, placing it over you in addition to the blanket he had on top of you. 

Finding some paper and a pen in a drawer, he wrote you a quick note and placed it on the bedside table before heading off out the door when the coast was clear, closing the door behind him and placing a nearby chair in front of it to dissuade any creatures from trying to open it. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chase walked as quietly as he could towards where he believed the kitchen area to be. There were a few lounges with vending machines, but he didn’t have his wallet on him and shooting through the glass might attract that monster he had left regenerating floors below, so he passed by the lounges with no luck. 

Heading the opposite direction from the stairs that he had taken to bring you to that room, Chase leaned his head past the first corner, gun at the ready. Not seeing the spike-faced man, he walked around the corner, relieved for the moment but prepared with the knowledge that he had yet to see one of those things open a door, so it would still be on this floor. He had to be as quiet as possible, since Ed was clearly still a threat, and who knew what other dangerous experiments his parents had performed in this building. 

Why were there so many lounges but not multiple kitchens, he couldn’t help but wonder as he passed another lounge, but this one was occupied by a woman who had two spikes that had developed straight through her eyes in the front and back, as well as dirty grey fingernails that were elongated past what a human’s should be. She was just inside the door, laying on the ground by the room’s vending machine. Chase’s jaw clenched at the sight, this wasn’t a new experience to him but every time he saw one of those _things_  he felt renewed to try and stop whatever was happening here. 

He walked slowly past, unwilling to rouse the woman who was likely undead, since everything here was, and Chase didn’t think he was going to get lucky any time soon. He was a few steps past that room when the shuffling began. 

He watched as the spike-faced man exited a room ahead and began to shuffle towards him, limbs bumping against the walls as he went. Chase quickly stepped back, but the man was shuffling faster than before and he had no choice but to duck back into the room with the woman on the floor. 

The lounge had a few couches and a vending machine, along with a few scattered magazines on the floor. It looked disheveled, a few items on the floor, and when he took a good look, he realized the woman was partially laying on what looked to be her purse. If that had any money in it, then Chase’s search for the kitchen would be over. At the same time, if he woke her, he would be putting himself in danger. And you, he thought bitterly. But who knows how many of these things were roaming the kitchen. 

He had to pause these thoughts as he realized that the undead man had paused outside of the room he was currently in, head turned towards him. 

Chase internally cursed, stepping back as quietly as he could until his back was against the far wall, right between the vending machine and one of the couches. 

He could only watch as the spike-face opened its mouth, which was somewhere between all of the spikes, and let out a hissing noise, that was almost the level of a growl. Chase stayed frozen where he was, eyes trained on it. His gun was in the hand that was now at his side, but he didn’t dare raise it in case the thing had increased hearing. 

He heard another matching noise as the woman on the floor five feet away from him rose, her head banging against the vending machine. In response, Chase almost slammed his head back against the wall as the spike-face proceeded to dislodge a few smaller spikes from his face, which hit the vending machine and shattered the glass, raining it down on the woman. 

As she stood up, the man shuffled closer, until she had stood up and he was inches from her. Upon getting close enough to her, he suddenly turned and shuffled out of the room, the woman following behind him. 

Guess they smell like undead, Chase figured. He was glad the creature’s senses didn’t detect him further into the room. 

When they left the room, the two creatures went in the direction the man had came from, and assumedly the direction of the kitchen. 

As soon as they left, Chase darted from his position by the wall over to the now-broken vending machine. The spikes the man had dislodged from his face were now on the floor, shattered glass surrounding them and in the machine. 

Chase bent down, staying off of the glass, and picked up the woman’s purse. He figured it should be safe, not like the woman had bit her purse or bled on it. There was very little in the purse; a wallet which contained no money, some store cards, and her staff ID, which gave Chase no information he did not already know. He emptied out her purse of its few items before turning his attention to the vending machine. 

He began to grab items from the machine, stuffing them in the purse until he could not carry any more. Slinging the purse on his shoulder, he walked over to the room’s entrance, and upon seeing no more creatures in the hallway, left the way he had come to head back to you. The kitchen clearly wasn’t worth it if there were at least two creatures he would have to deal with in order to get non-vending machine food. 

 

Your head hurt. You reached a hand up to feel for any bumps on your head, which you didn’t find any of. You didn’t want to open your eyes, but you did. 

You felt a short burst of panic at the unfamiliar surroundings. There were no zombies in the room, so you were at least safe. You weren’t sure what had happened to you, the last thing you could remember was Ed closing in on Chase. 

Chase! He wasn’t in the room with you. You got up with a start, searching the room for anything. 

The room was small, nothing but a bed, dresser and tiny adjoining bathroom, which were all free of any signs of Chase. Until you noticed a note on the dresser that you had overlooked, which you grabbed as you sat on the bed. 

The note explained that you had hit your head and passed out from the explosion in the lab. Chase was going to try and find you both some food, and insisted you stay in the room. He had signed the note with his name, so you knew it was him and not some other random person that found you. 

You felt bad that he had to carry you here and had set off on his own to find you food while you laid unconscious. He couldn’t even be sure that you wouldn’t be a zombie when he got back. Speaking of which, you checked yourself for anything out of the ordinary. Other than some bruises, you were fine. No sick feeling or spikes to be found. You hadn’t been able to relax since you entered this building. First Ed, now the constant worry that you were going to transform any second now. 

All you could do was sit still, as the door had no windows or even a peephole to look through. The room had almost no belongings in it at all. There were some pain pills and a sleep mask in the bedside drawer, but that was it. Lifting up the sleep mask, however, you found a hastily scrawled note. 

_Eric, if you find this, meet me at the secret elevator. I’ll wait for_ _you._

Evidently Eric had either come and gone or hadn’t made it to this room. You weren’t sure which. Either way, the promise of a secret elevator that might work was one that gave you hope. 

The door opened slowly, and you backed up on the bed until you saw it was Chase... with a hot pink women’s handbag? 

He noticed your curious stare, eyes lowering to look at the bag at his side as he closed the door. 

“Supplies,” he answered. “Took it from a zombie down the hall.” 

You moved over as he moved to sit on the bed beside you, bringing a hand to cover your forehead with. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked. 

“Fine,” you answered hesitantly. “For now.” 

“Well I’ve got some food to keep us going,” he said, opening the bag and allowing you to choose some junk food from it. 

Unwrapping your selected treats, you allowed Chase to talk while you ate. He filled you in on what had happened while you were out in more detail, including reluctantly informing you that he suspected that Ed was still alive after the explosion, and would likely be back up soon. 

“He’s still alive?” You were horrified and annoyed. Why did this jerk have to keep tormenting you? You really didn’t want to succumb to the virus and be forced to be his lizard bride and- 

“Stop it.” Chase took a firm grip of your shoulder with a hand. “If he comes at us again, we’ll knock him down again. I told you I won’t let anything get to you.” 

You tried to relax at his words, attempting to even out your breathing while meeting Chase’s kind gaze. You were overwhelmed; everything was hitting you at once and you had no way to deal with it, and currently had no way to prevent yourself from turning into an undead monster. 

Chase saw the look on your face and pulled you into him, your head resting on his shoulder as you cried in frustration. He pet your hair slowly, saying nothing and allowing your tears to soak the shoulder of his jacket. He let you stay like that for a while before he spoke. 

“I used to do this with Ali,” he said, continuing to pet your hair. 

You tried to stop your sniffles enough to reply but couldn’t. Once you had started, this was proving very hard to stop. 

“She was always upset when she was younger because our parents couldn’t care less about her. Every time they said no when she asked them to do something with her, she came and cried to me. I knew our parents never loved us, but Ali wouldn’t stop trying to get them to show her any sign of affection.” 

As he kept talking, your sniffles stopped, and tears slowly cut off as you listened to his story. You knew from your little time with Ali that she really seemed to crave her parents’ affections and was used in return. More and more, you found yourself hoping that if you turned into a creature, you could find them and teach them a lesson. Though the larger part of you would be happy to never turn and get out of here. 

You had been looking downwards, zoning out, but your vision cleared and focused in on the note that was crumpled in your grasp. 

“Chase!” 

Your sudden energy startled him as you took your head off his shoulder and looked at him, wiping the tears from your face with your sleeve. He looked unsure of what to do as he let you speak. You uncrumpled the note, offering it to him. 

“I found this in a drawer, it mentioned a secret elevator...” 

Chase took the note from you, reading it himself and frowning in thought. “If there are zombies here, then a secret elevator doesn’t seem that hard to believe.” 

“There was nothing else, though. Maybe if we found Eric’s room it would help us locate the elevator,” you suggested. 

“I’m game,” Chase agreed. “Then we can try and figure out which floor the antidote would be on, and then get you out of here.” 

Right, you remembered he insisted on going back for Ali, whatever state she was in now. You decided to put your focus on the task ahead of you, you could start thinking about Ali when you had found an antidote, hoping that she wasn’t too far gone to have one used on her as well. 

You stood up from the bed, heading over to the bathroom to splash some water on your face and rinsing your hands. You wished there was a shower in the room since you felt like you could really use one, but you put your potential grossness to the side as you joined Chase, who was slowly opening the door to look for any threats in the hallway. He turned back to motion you over. 

“We’ll search the rooms here to try and find Eric’s. If there is a zombie in the room, wait for me to look more into it,” he told you. 

“But I’m already infected!” you protested. “If I get bit, I won’t be any worse off!” 

You didn’t want Chase to be in the same boat as you, it was bad enough he was stuck here with an infected person. 

Chase gave you a stern look. “If we run into those things, I can shoot them. I don’t want you getting hurt for no reason. And a bite could bring on your symptoms faster.” 

You nodded, staying quiet. He was right, you didn’t want the virus stacked inside your body until it was too much to resist. You didn’t want either of you attacked to begin with; if Chase got infected, you didn’t think you had it in you to mercy kill him. And you didn’t want him to have to kill you either, so this elevator was your best bet since the main one had been sealed off after the alarm. You were still kicking yourself over that one; if you hadn’t pressed it, you may still have had a way out of this hell. 

The two of you split up to cover more ground, but the hall of personal rooms was not that long, so Chase wasn’t far away in case any problems arose. 

The first two rooms you checked were like the one you were in: empty of any personal belongings and items aside from the standard furniture set. You felt a bit disappointed; this Eric guy was your only lead, and your idea, so you were really hoping you weren’t chasing a dead end. 

The third door you opened was hard to open, the door seemingly caught on something. You got it open a fraction, peering in to see a body. You fell back onto your butt in surprise, and Chase was right at your side as soon as he heard you fall. 

“What is it?” he whispered, reaching ahead of you to the door handle. 

“A body on the floor,” you quickly supplied as Chase forced the door fully open. 

He stepped inside with you at his heels, and you found that this one was not a zombie like you thought. Instead, it was a man who you assumed had his back leaned against the doorway. The body was a man, at least, because a good chunk of his face was missing, blood splattered on the floor and a gun just to the right of him. 

“Shit,” Chase swore, keeping you behind him. “You should stay outside while I look in here. I don’t want you to have to look at this.” 

“No!” you protested quickly. “I don’t want to be out there alone with zombies roaming!” 

“All right,” he acquiesced. “You might want to avoid looking at him though.” 

You agreed, as you also entered the room behind Chase and began looking around it. Under the bed, you found an envelope, which you opened to find a single sheet of paper. 

_Look Eric, I could be in massive trouble even telling you this. They fired the last person to use their personal elevator, since it goes to floors nobody else can access. This is the map to the elevator, but you_ _gotta_ _protect it with your life. You know where to find the last guy that tried to cross the Hayes’_  

Chase ducked down to look at the letter with you, and the adjoining map with different codes written on it for various security checkpoints. 

“Let’s head back to the other room to figure this out,” he said, standing up as you two left the room and the lifeless body within it. 

You had almost forgotten about the folder than Chase had risked his life to go back for. He picked it up, leafing through the contents as you sat down on the bed with the map. 

“Anything?” you probed him, watching as he stopped on a single paper in the folder, reading it intently.  

His fingers clenched hard around the file and you got up, moving closer to him. “Chase?” 

He cast his eyes downwards, letting himself fall back onto the bed, shirt rising up slightly to reveal a sliver of his stomach. What was up with him? You made a grab for the folder, but he moved it out of your grasp. 

“You don’t want to read this,” he told you sternly, sitting up on the bed. When you tried again to grab the folder, he swatted your hand away. “They want to sell Ali.” 

“What?” You were dumbfounded. What did he mean _sell_ Ali? 

“Most of this is just business information. But there is an email from my mom to my dad stating...” He pulled the paper out of the folder. “ _Alicia’s sample has tested wonderfully with the virus and should proceed into trial. Her mutation will likely return us a great deal of money to use to create a more powerful strain of v_ _irus._ ” 

He wasn’t kidding. They would infect their daughter and throw her away. What was their end goal here? Money? 

Chase allowed you to lean forward and read more of the printed email he was still holding. The email continued, suggesting that they have Chase tested on as well to see how the virus would react with his genetic structure. 

“Wow.” You weren’t sure what else to say. 

“Yeah, real pieces of work they are,” Chase said, tossing the folder back on the bed, grimace turning into a small, shallow smile as he looked at you. “I won’t bore you with my issues.” 

“You’re talking like I’ve never met Ali!” you insisted, hands on your hips. “She saved my life, Chase. Do you think I’m just going to take my cure and run off?” 

“No, I...” He looked a little startled, bringing a hand through his hair as he looked away. “I’m sorry.” 

“I know your parents suck,” you said to a dry laugh from Chase. “First we need to find the antidote and then find Ali. It might not be too late to try and help her!” 

“You’re right.” Chase smiled a genuine smile, standing up and leaving the files on the bed and picking up the map you had left on the bed. “We should get going.” 

“I can hold the snack bag,” you offered, gesturing to the very girly-looking bag. “I don’t think that’s your color.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to be mean and break this super long chapter into two parts! I'll post the next chapter in a few days after I've edited it!

The letter had explained that there was a panel on each floor which opened a door to the secret elevator. Chase checked the floor list, and for the floor you were on, the panel masking the elevator was on the wall just beyond the kitchen. 

Chase sighed as he stared at the map as if he was hoping the elevator location would change. 

“What?” you asked.  

“I didn’t even get that far when I went to find food. There were two zombies in that area, but there are probably more.” 

“We could go down a floor?” you suggested. Maybe the floor below would have an easier panel to get to. 

“Ed will probably be up and roaming by now, looking for us. It’s our best bet to look for the elevator on this floor before Ed decides to come up here,” he said, walking over to the door and pulling it open to look around. 

He turned back to you, ushering you over to him. You folded the map in half and put it in the snack purse, which you then slung over your shoulder, getting up from the bed to to join Chase at the door. 

He had his gun up and at the ready as he stepped out into the hallway with you at his heels. 

“Stay behind me and try not to make any noise. If the zombies come at us, I’ll shoot them and we make a run for the elevator,” he told you. 

“Got it!” you replied as the two of you set off down the empty corridor, hoping that it didn’t come to gunfire with the zombies. 

There were no sounds other than your light footsteps and worried breathing, which you tried to quiet down once you noticed you were breathing too loudly. The zombies didn’t really need any reason to come at you so you weren’t going to give them a single one. 

Before long, you had a system going. When you got to corners, Chase would check them himself first and then motion you forward when he found they were safe. You passed by even the stairway without seeing the two zombies Chase had mentioned, or really anything else notable at all. That was until you turned onto the final hallway before the kitchen. You passed the lounge with the broken vending machine that Chase had mentioned, looking in to see the creepy bonelike spikes on the floor as you walked by, but you were stopped dead in your tracks by Chase’s hand on your arm. 

“Cha-” 

He quickly moved the hand that was on your arm to cover your mouth as his green eyes darted from yours to the hallway ahead of you, motioning you to look over there. 

The kitchen had a window that stretched all the way across the top half of the room, and it was crawling with zombies. There was a woman with spikes through her eyes and out the back of her head who was halfway inside the door to the room but not currently looking in your direction. There had to be at least twenty in there, the room looking very crowded with the undead. The two of you slowly backed into the room with the broken vending machine in order to talk without the woman hearing you. 

“This would explain why the bedrooms were so empty,” Chase remarked. “That woman and the spike-faced guy were the ones here when I came through but I didn’t see the all the others.” 

“What do we do?” you whispered. “I don’t think they’re going to just let us by.” 

Chase considered your words, lost in his thoughts for only a moment. “If we give them something to chase after, they’ll leave that area alone for a bit.” 

“We’ll be bait?” You saw what was coming, grimacing at the thought. 

“No,  _I’ll_  be bait,” he clarified. “I’ll lure them out and then hide in the stairway until they pass by me. As soon as they go around that corner, you need to go unlock the elevator room.” 

You would be separated? You would have to rely on Chase to keep the zombies occupied long enough to allow you to unlock the room, which could end up being longer if you got nervous and messed up. 

“You’re awfully brave for someone who hasn’t dealt with zombies before today,” you teased him. You felt the need to keep the conversation going to put off the plan for even a few moments longer to put off what you knew you needed to do. 

“Anything for a pretty girl,” he answered with a small smile. You felt a sudden rush of embarrassment as he continued. “I’ll be back as soon as I get rid of these guys.” 

He seemed less affected by the flirting than you had been since he was immediately ready for action. Wait, you corrected yourself, he wasn’t flirting, he was probably just trying to distract you from thinking about the zombies so you would be able to focus on the plan. He was  _not_  flirting, you decided as he dashed out into the hallway. He probably had a girlfriend anyways, he was too good-looking not to. 

Chase walked slowly into the hallway, turning his head back to face you to give you a nod. The plan was going forward. 

“Hey!” Chase shouted, with a resounding groan and hiss as a response from the group of zombies in the kitchen. Chase looked back at you, signaling you to hide further in the room. You quickly ducked behind a couch as Chase turned around and ran back towards the stairs. 

The zombies had obviously taken the bait since you heard the loud shuffling and groaning noises that you had first heard outside your and Ali’s, room whenever ago that was. Events had really condensed in your mind, so you had a hard time recalling exactly when you had done what. Sitting outside the facility on your phone felt like a millennium ago; you wished you could go back to then and never have come into this awful place. 

You stayed frozen as you watched zombies of all magnitudes shuffle by you and around the corner. There were the two Chase had pointed out to you, but there were also many others, some you noticed with green skin or a long bone jutting out from behind them that looked like some horrific tail. Many of their hands had long claw-like fingernails that were army green. 

All in a loud group they passed by you, shuffling and moaning, bumping into each other as they went. You kept your eyes on the open door as the minutes ticked by, the creatures all passing by the room you hid in as they searched for Chase. You hoped Ed had better things to do than look in the stairwell where Chase would be hiding right now. Or, better yet, that creep could just fall in a vat of acid and die, you were sure they had to have those somewhere around here. 

You saw a zombie pass with the bone spikes growing from all around its jaw... and then nothing. No more zombies. You waited thirty seconds... and still nothing more passed by your door. 

Your heart was beating so loudly that you could hear it in your ears as you made your way over to the door, holding your bag still to ensure it made no noise. There was nothing undead to be seen in either direction, the kitchen window also showing no signs of anything still remaining in the kitchen. 

You slowly crept out of the room, walking as quietly as you could to the far wall, which was not too far away but felt like forever. As you passed the kitchen, you looked in to find it a horrible mess. There were bits of food strewn all over the large room, and the fridge door was hanging wide open to reveal messy contents. 

You soon figured out why all of the zombies were grouped in this room as you stepped back with a shiver going down your spine as you saw two people whose gender you were unsure of slumped against the wall at the back of the room. 

Your unsurety was largely stemming from the fact that both were only really humanoid in shape. They had so many deep wounds and areas of missing flesh that it looked like they had been attacked by wolves. Well, zombies weren’t that different than wolves in this regard anyways. You were transfixed by the horrible scene, standing motionless just inside of the door, unable to look away from the horrific mess that used to be two people. Your panic really set in while staring at them, feeling like you were looking at your likely fate. That, or you’d be like one of the zombies that ate them. 

Hands locked onto your shoulders and you yelped as you were pulled back out of the kitchen. You looked back to see Chase, whose faced was twisted in a tense expression. 

“Are you okay? You were just standing there staring at...” He looked around you and into the room, looking at the same horror you had been stunned by. “We should go,” he said softly, turning you away from the kitchen. 

You brought yourself back to reality, quickly realizing you might not have much time to get to the elevator, and you had wasted who knows how long staring at mangled corpses when Chase was counting on you to have the door open for when he got back. 

You reached in your bag to pull out the map only to see that Chase was already feeling up the walls, his gun stowed in his pants pocket for the time being. 

You unfolded the map, looking it over for details. “Um, it says that there’s a dip in the wall with a paint discoloration.” 

Chase traced his fingers on the wall faster as you both heard a groaning coming from behind you and getting closer. You quickly looked back when the noises got louder and then began to frantically scan the wall for whatever a  _paint discoloration_  was. The wall was ten feet long and just as high, which was not making this easy to find. Your eyes hit a slight blue spot on the green wall, only millimeters in size, right as the zombies turned the corner. 

Without a second thought, you pushed on the blue speck of paint, almost too small to see, as an inhuman howl rang out behind you and more zombies turned the corner, attention fixed squarely on you. You also heard more noises from around you and turned your head to the kitchen to see the barely-humanoid corpses you had seen in there begin to rise up, their bodies barely held together from the massive injuries they had sustained as humans. 

“Chase!” you cried out, grabbing onto him unconsciously as your time was running out before your eyes. 

Chase growled, leaning back slightly before slamming his shoulder into the wall where the blue speck was, nearly falling face-first as the wall slid open, revealing a small, barely-lit room with an elevator. 

You both dashed in the small room, spinning around to look for a way to close the door behind you. You slammed your hand down onto a small grey button to the side of the door, which made the wall close back up just as the zombies were now within a foot of where you and Chase had previously been standing. As the door closed, you were plunged into the darkness of the room, whose only light came from the small elevator buttons on the far wall. 

You fell to the floor in relief. “I can’t believe that worked. Why wouldn’t the door open?” 

Chase scoffed. “Probably never been used. My parents would never come to a floor to socialize with employees.” 

The door was not too thick that you couldn’t hear the zombies on the other side, and you quickly moved away from the door. You were pretty sure they couldn’t break through the metal door that was hidden behind wall, but you weren’t taking any chances with this place. You walked over to Chase, who was barely visible over by the elevator, staring at the buttons. 

“I’m not sure which direction the cure would be,” he admitted. “But we’d better get in the elevator first.” 

He pressed the down button, and the elevator came fairly quickly, see-through doors opening soundlessly and allowing the two of you entrance. The elevator was small, but if it was just intended for use by two people, then it made sense that the elevator had only a bit more space than needed to fit both you and Chase. You looked at the elevator’s buttons, numbered from 1 to B31. 

“Wait... B30 was the lowest the stairs went!” you said, pointing towards it. 

Chase smirked. “A hidden floor seems like a good place to hide the antidote.” 

He pressed the button and the elevator doors closed, leaving the group of zombies as you descended further into the building than you had ever been previously. A part of you wondered what happened to Ali as you passed the 30th underground floor. Had Ed really killed her like he had said? You continued to hold out hope for the spunky little girl; if Ed was able to regenerate, you had to assume she would be able to as well. You needed to get this cure, not just for yourself, but to try to cure Ali as well. 

The doors opened to reveal a sparkly-clean white hallway. Makes sense that this level didn’t open up to a tiny elevator room if this was the only way onto the floor. Why bother hiding a secret elevator on a secret floor? You and Chase stepped out of the elevator and he removed his gun from his pocket, holding it out in front of him as the two of you walked down the hallway. 

The hallway opened into a door, which then led into a large laboratory. The lab was almost too clean, the tables empty except for a few neatly stacked papers. There were various computers and machines in the room, but nothing seemed to be on. You went straight over to the papers, while Chase examined the machines, hoping to find some clue. Chase tried to open the multiple adjoining doors to the lab but found that they were all locked. 

As he looked around, you picked up one of the papers. Finding it to be a receipt, you put it to the side and continued looking through the rest of the stack. Finding a lot of them to be irrelevant, your hands gripped the paper tighter when you saw the word antidote right at the top of one of the papers. You quickly read over the rest of it and your heart dropped. 

_Raymond, I placed the antidote in the back of drawer 5D. Remember that there is only one antidote to this virus, so should both of us be infected, only one of us will survive. We cannot allow enough of the_ _antidote_ _to be available for a proper vaccine to be developed, but I predict that neither of us will have the need for this and it will explode if anyone tries to leave the building with it._

The note was signed Irina. You recalled that the last note you had read on the virus was written by someone named Raymond, so you figured these were the names of Chase’s parents. 

But the knowledge that there was only a single cure hit you like a truck. A single cure that would destruct if it left the building. You realized with a start – it was either you or Ali. Ali had to be alive, and you knew that she would need this more than you, since you had yet to even show signs. Maybe you could leave the building and then find some other cure. You bent over to the drawer, grabbing the single vile of turquoise-blue liquid and stashing it in your bag under some chocolate bars from the vending machine. You were torn on what to tell Chase, since you knew he wouldn’t be happy if he knew you purposefully didn’t take the cure. 

You had to say something though, you couldn’t just let him keep searching for nothing. You called his name and he turned around to look at you. 

“I found the cure!” you said and his eyes lit up as he raced over to you. 

“Where is it?” he asked, and you reluctantly pulled it out of your bag for him to examine. 

“Hurry, you should take it before anything happens,” he urged you, handing the vaccine back to you. 

You had to think quick. “I... I already took it. There were two. This one is for Ali.” 

Your stammering had to not be even remotely believable, but he seemed to buy it. Now you just had to hope that you wouldn’t start showing symptoms until you got to a hospital or somewhere with some intense zombie-disease treatment. “We should go find Ali.” 

“You said you last saw her on B30, right?” Chase asked as the two of you made your way out of the lab, antidote stashed deep in your purse once again. 

You were slightly ahead of Chase, and you opened the door for the both of you, only to be pushed back into the lab by a gun in your face. Before you knew what was happening, Chase had grabbed you and pushed you directly behind him, his back now facing you. 

“Out of the way, Chase,” the brunette woman you knew as Ali’s mother, and Chase’s mother too now that you knew him, was standing just in front of Chase, her husband right beside her, gun also pointed in your direction. 

“What are you doing, mom?” Chase demanded, pulling his gun out to point back at his mother. 

“She has the virus, Chase. Stand aside so I can neutralize her,” his mother said unflinchingly. “I will shoot you to get to her.” 

“Irina...” her husband said softly. 

“Shut up and keep your gun on her, Raymond,” Irina snapped. “One last chance, Chase. Move unless you want to die with her.” 

“What is wrong with you?” he shouted at her. “She’s not infected, she-” 

The rest of his sentence was interrupted by a loud crash that sent debris from the ceiling everywhere around the room, a giant hole right above the door where Chase’s parents were. Chase quickly grabbed your hand, pulling you to hide behind a desk as the smoke in the air cleared, his hand on your back as you both crouched down. 

You felt a cold chill down your spine as you saw Ed in the rubble, now standing in the middle of the room. You unconsciously squeezed Chase’s hand, and he squeezed it back, eyes shifting from Ed to you as you both watched his parents from your hiding spot. 

“Is that Edward?” Raymond asked to nobody in particular. 

Ed was facing away from them but turned his sickeningly green head towards them without moving his neck. “You...” he seethed, turning himself fully to face them. “You... die!” 

He rushed at them, immediately shifting to all fours, crawling on the floor with ease as he quickly descended on them. 

“Edward!” Irina shrieked in fury, aiming her gun and shooting him in his remaining good eye as she and Raymond ran towards one of the locked doors at the back of the lab, escaping the now-blind Ed, who was on the floor madly scratching at his ruined eye sockets. 

You heard your name whispered as you stared at Ed. 

“We have to go,” Chase insisted, pulling you up with him as you snuck towards the doors back to the elevator. You got most of the way before you slipped on some rubble from the ceiling, falling to the ground, immediately alerting Ed. 

“Run!” Chase yelled, helping you up and through the doors, which he then slammed closed behind you. You looked behind you as Chase dragged you to the elevator to see Ed’s massive form make a large dent in the doors. They didn’t have much time. 

You two rushed into the elevator, slamming the B30 button and watching the door be incredibly slow to close. You backed up against the back wall of the elevator as you watched the dent on the laboratory doors get worse and worse with every shove Ed made towards it. Chase was repeatedly pressing the B30 button, as the elevator did not have any door closing buttons, as he too kept his eyes on the doors Ed was pounding down. 

With a loud roar, Ed finally burst through the doors, crashing them to either sides of the hallway and ripping the paint from the walls as they slammed into them with the force of a giant man lizard. A giant man lizard who was now listening intently to find you. He went onto all fours, crawling on one side wall as he tried to locate you and Chase. 

With a small metallic noise, the elevator doors finally began to close. Ed immediately picked up on the noise and began to rapidly crawl at you. 

“Chase!” you shouted desperately. There was really no point in being quiet now that Ed had homed in on your location and was excitedly dashing at you, black tongue flicking out of his mouth in excitement as he approached. 

“I know!” Chase answered, turned quickly to look at you before drawing his focus back to Ed. “Come on...” 

Ed was getting too close too rapidly. He would be upon you before the doors were closed. You stayed backed up at the wall, and Chase prepared to shoot Ed to keep him from getting in the elevator. 

You did the only thing you could think of and threw a hard candy bar with surprising aim at the monstrous creature, which hit him directly in his recently-shot eye. Well, both eyes were recently shot you remembered. But one slightly fresher than the other one which Chase had shot back in the lab floors upstairs. 

The hit distracted Ed for a moment as he stared down to sniff at what he was hit with, chest heaving from the pain of having a candy bar flung at his recently blown-out eye socket. He growled through his elongated teeth, tongue reaching up to soothe the all too recent injury and full removal of his vision. 

The candy bar hit saved you and Chase as Ed was removed from your vision as the clear elevator doors closed and the elevator began to ascend as you escaped the beast once again. His angered scream echoed into the elevator as you and Chase evaded capture. Suddenly your feet grew unsteady as a hard hit came to the bottom of the elevator. Ed has climbed into the elevator shaft in an attempt to follow you. You quickly moved away from the spot that was hit and luckily the elevator did not have far to go as you were only going one floor up. 

The elevator pinged its arrival to B30, and you and Chase wasted no time rushing out of the elevator and into another small elevator room that was bathed in light from the inside of the elevator. You both waited for the elevator’s doors to close before you collapsed in a heap on the ground and Chase leaned against a wall in the small room. 

“Why can’t he just go away?” you complained, trying to distract your eyes with the details of the floor, hard to see in the dark without the light from the elevator. 

“You did hit him hard with that chocolate bar,” Chase admitted with a laugh. “Guess I was wasting my time learning how to use a gun when I could’ve been throwing candy.” 

“It was all I had!” you protested, and Chase shook his head, coming closer to you to help you up. 

“You did good, not sure we would’ve made it out of there if I had shot him since it takes a lot to knock him down,” Chase replied, walking over to the door with you right behind him. He turned, and it was hard to make out the details of his face as he faced you fully with no expression on his face. “You don’t have to come with me.” 

“What?” 

“Ali is  _my_  family, I don’t want you to get hurt because you tried to help me. You can take that elevator all the way out and get to safety,” he said with no discernible emotion in his voice. You figured he was trying to put a hero move and not put you in more danger gaze steady as he stared into your eyes from a short length away, brushing some hair from your face. 

You frowned. He was still trying to be a gentleman, it seemed. How many times did you have to tell him that you wanted to help Ali too before he got the message in his dumb blonde head? You brushed past him, locating the button to release the secret door, which swiftly opened before you. Turning your head back to face Chase, who was now partially illuminated by the light in the hallway, you smirked at him. 

“Well? Hurry up!” 

You strode along the hallway with purpose, not recognizing the area. This must have been further down the hallway from the room Ali had mutated in. You were brought to a stop when Chase rushed in front of you, putting his hands on your shoulders and staring into your eyes. 

“Thank you,” he said, looking very solemn. “When this is over, dinner on me wherever you want.” 

“I might have expensive taste,” you replied, trying not to look as embarrassed as you were. Would his girlfriend be okay with that? You still had no idea if he had a girlfriend or not. You were still not willing to ask and then feel awkward for feeling how you were about him. You tried to put it out of your mind; you have a deadly virus and are surrounded by zombies, quit thinking about the hot guy who had been by your side since you woke up after Ed’s initial attack. 

“Nothing is too expensive for someone who is willing to risk herself to save someone else’s little sister,” Chase said as you explored the hallways, seeing no sign of Ali or Ed, or that giant hole Ed had made in the floor to get down to where the lab was. 

“I knew her too,” you protested softly. “She said your parents told her the virus they injected us with would make her super strong. She told me she would finally beat you at wrestling.” 

Chase laughed, but his eyes looked sad. “Yeah, she talked about that a lot. I even tried to let her win, but she would get mad at me if she noticed me going easy on her.” 

“Hard to please,” you joked, and Chase nodded solemnly. 

“Yeah... I just worry about what state she’s in now. You told me she said to leave before she ate you.” He let you nod awkwardly before continuing. “If even a bit of her is left in there, if this antidote has any chance of working at all, I have to try. I’m her big brother...” he trailed off, and you let the silence stand as you continued to search for her. 

This hallway was very long and contained mostly locked rooms. The ones that weren’t locked didn’t have any clues in them, just shredded documents and pens and no Ali. Chase was getting more and more frantic with each dead end, and you weren’t sure what to do to keep him calm, so you just did your best to help search. Finally, you turned the corner onto a very smashed-up hallway, walls partially caved-in and plaster strewn without. There were long black claw halves broken and laying on the ground, and one even embedded in the wall. 

“Chase!” you tugged his sleeve and he looked over at you. “This is where Ali and Ed fought earlier!” 

Your information brought hope back into Chase’s search as he rushed over to the room adjacent the door smashed against the wall. You followed him as you began to hear a noise. 

It sounded like crying, but if the person crying had been in a desert for a year with no water. It was also slightly distorted, sounding monstrous, but Chase rushed into the room anyways and you followed. 

You both entered the room to see a green-tinged feminine reptile with purple spikes all over her body. She had developed a frilled collar around her neck like you had seen on reptiles before, the same green color the rest of her body had turned. At this point she was more monster than human, even her once-human facial features had pulled back, her nose morphed into barely slits and her eyes bigger. But it was her. 

“Ali!” you shouted, rushing forward to the girl who was sitting against a desk with her knees to her chest, sobbing in the only way she could now with her mutations, her voice distorting through a severely mutated throat. Chase was right behind you as you both ducked down to be next to her. 

“Ali!” Unflinching when he was next to her, Chase set his hands on both of her shoulders and she looked up at him with startlingly green eyes set in her very lizard-like face. She garbled something, eyes wide. You had to figure she had called out to him, but she was past the point where speech was easy for her. 

“Ali, we’re here to save you, you have to come with us and we can cure you!” Chase implored her, standing her up with him. 

Ali began to look left and right, but you weren’t sure what she was doing. She yelped out some words you couldn’t make out and broke out of his grip, dashing outside on all fours. 

Chase shouted her name, chasing after her, and you rushed to follow them, but found yourself to be significantly slower than the very in-shape Chase and his mutated lizard-girl sister. When you finally caught up to them, you found Chase on his knees in front of an open vent. He turned to you when you approached. 

“Ali went in here, I don’t know where it goes to,” he told you. 

Ah, that vent. The last time you had been in there, Ali had still been a human. “That’s the vent me and Ali took down from our room,” you said. 

Chase looked into the vent, frowning. “It’s too small for me to get through. Can you go through and get Ali?” he asked you. “If you tell me what floor that room was on, I’ll take the secret elevator up.” 

You grimaced, not really wanting to get back in the cramped vent, but you had to get to Ali before she did anything rash, and you could likely get there faster than Chase, provided he would have to somehow get into the hallway where the dormitory was and deal with your mutated dorm mates. Oh right, that would be useful information. You had to think back to when you had first gotten in the elevator to head down to the trial. 

“The room is on B20, past the door and down the hallway to the right,” you informed him. 

Chase nodded, about to head off when you grabbed his sleeve. “Chase, there are at least 5 zombies in that dorm. You have to be careful.” 

He gave you a soft smile in response to your pleading. “I promise I’ll make it to you and Ali. Stay safe.” 

He looked like he didn’t want to leave you, but forced himself to head back down the hallway towards the elevator, and you watched him until he turned the corner and left your vision, which prompted you to climb into the vent to start your trek up to Ali. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chase dashed down the hall at top speed. He wasn’t concerned with Ed, that slimy jackass could come at him if he wanted but he wasn’t going to stop Chase from getting to Ali. Now that he knew she was alive, he was going to do everything in his power to save his baby sister. He had held out hope that Ed had failed to kill her, and to see her in front of his eyes was a relief, no matter what state she was in.  

He had called out for her as he ran after her, unconcerned with his volume as he tried to get her to stop running away from him. But no matter what he said, Ali continued to dash on all fours away from him, down the hall and around the corner. He raced around the corner to catch up to her and found her in a crawl position directly in front of an open vent. 

“Ali! Don’t!” he called out. It was obvious what she was going to do. 

Ali disregarded him. She gave him one fleeting glance, chittering quietly to herself before she scrambled into the vent as Chase tried to approach her. 

Chase was too slow, however, and Ali swiftly escaped him as he dashed to the vent. He was still there, looking in the vent to catch any glimpse of her as you turned the corner and saw him. He quickly explained the situation, and in his inspection of the vent he had noticed that there was no way he would fit. The vent would fit a lizard monster because it was still roughly the size of a little girl, her spikes not impeding her vent escape at all, but Chase knew his shoulders were too broad to fit in himself, so he would have to rely on you. 

He wished that he could fit in the vent, that he didn’t have to send you in alone to deal with a potentially incredibly dangerous mutated little girl. His sister would never hurt a fly before this had happened to her, quite literally; Chase remembered various times when they were younger and Ali wouldn’t let him hurt _Mr. Fly_ , instead making Chase take way longer to catch the fly so they could both release it outside. She was a sweet girl, if not a bit more playful with him when their parents weren’t around, but he knew she would fight hard against any mutation-based instincts that told her to hurt anybody. 

He knew if anyone could help Ali, it would be you. Ali loved him with everything she had, but he knew she was disappointed that she never had a sister. Chase tried to braid her hair, but he was never great at it. She never seemed to mind, but he knew what Ali really wanted was a sisterly figure to look up to and paint fingernails and watch girly movies with. He was willing to do those things, but Ali would always get a sad look in her eyes whenever she mentioned sisters. She wasn’t allowed to have friends either, so she was incredibly lonely. No wonder she jumped at the chance to have a girl closer to her age than their mother to spend time with. Chase was just resentful that Ali got barely a few hours with you before their parents did this to her.  

He knew you cared about Ali too, which made him feel better. He wasn’t alone in his pursuit to save his little sister, because you had protected Ali to the best of your abilities until she had sent you away to save you from herself. Ali had fought Ed for you, and while she was a sweet girl, he knew that for her to risk her life for you, you meant a great deal to her. He wasn’t blind to the fact that you meant a lot to him too; he could excuse his fondness for you with the fact that you helped his sister all he wanted, but a part of him that was getting too big to ignore found comfort in your smile and he was quickly realizing that he didn’t want to let you go. He was reluctant to name the feeling, but as he ascended in the elevator, he was forced to acknowledge that he was falling for you. 

The elevator came out in a dark secret hallway which wound around a few corners before he found himself in an empty room which was sparkly-white, remaining untouched by the viral outbreak everywhere else. There was a desk which he quickly sped over to and raced behind. There were a bunch of scattered papers around, including many laying on the floor. The reception area gave the impression that whoever worked had here left in a hurry, which was not surprising with the sudden outbreak of chaos. Scanning over the papers quickly, he found that they detailed the arrival times for what he assumed were the patients in the trial, and your name was on the list with a check next to it. Chase gripped the paper a little too hard and crumpled it in anger. Nobody deserved to be experimented on in the guise of a medical trial, least of all his little sister and you. He tossed the paper back on the desk and turned to the sliding door that led further into the floor. 

He only knew it was a door because it was open, the sliding door looked to retract into the wall in order to seamlessly blend it into the rest of the wall. Whoever had been here had abandoned all their papers and forgotten to close the secret door in their haste. Chase wasn’t going to complain about the easier entrance, it really saved him time that he needed to get to you and Ali. He raced down the empty hallway, turning the way you told him to and finding a locked door.  

As he shot his way through the elderly-ladies-turned-zombies, kicking a male zombie down the hole in the floor, he could think of nothing but getting to you and Ali as fast as he could and hoping you were both okay. 

 

The climb up actually felt easier than the one down. The vent was not inclined too sharply so you were easily able to crawl forward towards your destination. It must have been Ali that slowed you down last time, or your determination that sped you up now. Either way, you had to get to Ali before anything or anyone else did. You had the antidote, so it was important that you got to her as soon as you could so the cure would have the best chance of working before she got as mindlessly violent as Ed. Though to be fair, he was like that before he mutated as well. 

You breezed through the vent crawl, though the air of the vent was thick with the awful smell of death, almost to the point where you felt you needed to take a break to try to breathe. But you pushed on, afraid of what would happen to Ali if you wasted even a second getting to her. Finally, you saw a light. It was the dull light of one of your room’s lamps that had been knocked to the floor in your prior haste to escape, but it was a light and you rushed towards it. 

As soon as you entered the room through the open vent, you let yourself breathe less rancid air finally, leaning against the wall by the vent for a few seconds. It felt like you had taken half the time as before to get up here, and you let your eyes adjust to the darkness as you heard more distorted sobs, this time coming from beneath your bed which was in the same place you had left it. 

“Ali?” you called out quietly, not wanting to rouse any zombies that might still be near the hallway where your room was. “Ali, we just want to help you.” 

“Chase...” You heard her gurgle out her brother’s name in her distorted voice. “No Chase...” 

“He’s not here. It’s just me, Ali. Please come out,” you pleaded with her. “I have an antidote to the virus!” 

You leaned back as to not startle Ali as she slowly slinked out from under the bed on all fours, her long claws making scratches on the floor as she came fully into your vision. You could see massive tears in her large green eyes, dripping down her flat face and resting on her frilled neck. She looked every bit the monster and little girl that she was. Even in this form, even if she was still fighting the urge to eat you, you stretched a hand out to her, one that she very reluctantly took after a few seconds. 

She took the hand and pulled you into her in a hug that was very different now that she had grown to be taller than you. She rested her face on your chest, her clawed hands wrapped around you as gently as possible so as to not hurt you. You heard her garble your name over and over as you pet her slimy green hair. 

“Ali...” you whispered. “I have a cure that will make you all better. I just need you to drink it and you’ll be normal again.” 

You didn’t know if you were promising her the truth or not as you two parted from your embrace in order for you to reach into your bag and pull out the vial of blue liquid. You felt relieved that you had found her and she finally seemed willing, but you knew at the same time that you were giving away your antidote and dooming yourself should the virus arise any time soon. But there was only one dose, and Ali needed it way more than you. You weren’t about to let her brother lose her again when he had come so far to rescue her and done so much for you, a complete stranger. Ali need the cure, and you weren’t going to have second thoughts. 

You instructed her to open her mouth. “Ali, I don’t know if this tastes bad or not, but you have to drink it, okay?” 

She garbled a response that you felt was positive, and you opened the lid of the vaccine, pouring it past her elongated fangs and down her throat. You watched as Ali swallowed, and then stared at you. You watched her with bated breath, and then resisted the urge to flinch as she fell towards you. 

Ali head hit your lap, and you pet her hair softly. You had to keep her calm, if this was just the antidote working its magic, you had to make sure Ali was calm as she turned back to normal again. Ali was shaking violently, sounding like she was choking. When you looked at her face, she had her eyes closed and mouth as shut as it could get with her giant teeth. But then they weren’t as giant. 

You watched as Ali’s teeth began to shrink until they were the normal size of a twelve-year-old's teeth. Moisture returned to her lips and an entirely-normal tongue reached out to lick across her lips. Her eyes seemed to be moving rapidly under her lids and they snapped open, green, but the green they had been when you first met her instead of the violent neon green they had become during her mutation. Her eyes shrunk on her face and her hair began to lose its slimy feel and return to its normal dirty blonde color. 

Ali let out a whimper of pain as her hands began to twitch and you had to hold them still at the wrists to keep her from accidentally slashing you. Her eyes, full of pain, stared at your own as she cried out in pain. “It hurts... it hurts...” she whispered. 

“It’s okay, Ali. The cure is working. You have to sit still,” you instructed her, almost unable to control the volume of smile you had sent her way due to your elation. The cure was working, it wasn’t too late, Ali was going to be okay! You hoped Chase got here soon, but for now you needed to be here to help Ali. 

Her fingernails finally retracted and shortened to their regular length and hue. She continued to whimper and hiss in pain as the purple spikes dotting her arms and back began to push out of her skin, falling onto the floor around you and crumbling into nothing as her skin repaired itself and became normal again. Her tail, which had been wagging in agitation, fell to the same fate as the spikes and dislodged itself from her body, crumbling into dust that vanished. Her toenails that had torn through and ruined her shoes retracted, leaving her barefoot. Her lizard-like skin softened until it became normal once again, and the green hue completely vanished, leaving her pale skin behind. She looked up to you with the most joy you had ever seen on her little face, calling out your name again and again as she rose up slowly to tackle you in a hug that left you falling to the floor. 

“Calm down Ali!” you told her but found her giddiness infectious as you grinned back at the little girl.  

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” she cried, and you were so happy that you were able to help her in time, but you put a hand on her arm. 

“Ali, did you pack a change of clothes here?” you asked, gesturing towards her ruined outfit. Barely any of it was still intact, her sleeves and most of the pant legs of her pajamas torn off, the bunny print barely visible through all the dirt and grime. 

Ali nodded, heading over to her dresser and pulling out a blue t-shirt with silvery-white sparkly stars across it and a pair of jean capris with butterflies sewn across the bottoms of them. She even had an extra pair of shoes, pink runners with blue laces. You moved over to the door to listen to outside as she changed, finding a brush to brush her hair with as well and then tying it into a ponytail. 

You didn’t hear anything outside – no gunshots, zombie noises, nothing. Had Chase gotten lost or run into some problem? 

“What are you doing?” Ali asked. “Listening to doors?” 

She caught you off guard. “Uh, no... I was...” How much could you tell a twelve-year old about the situation? Well, nothing she didn’t already know, you corrected yourself. “Your brother said he would come here to meet us because he was too big to go through the vent.” 

Ali screwed her face in an upset expression. “I didn’t mean to run away, I just didn’t want to hurt you or Chase...” 

You smiled in a way you hoped was reassuring. “He knows you didn’t want to hurt him, Ali.” 

“Did you ask him?” she pressed. 

“No...” you admitted. “But I know your brother loves you. He’s going to get here and then we’re all going to escape!” 

Ali’s smile turned sly as she sat down next to you at the door. “So... do you like my brother?” 

Your eyes widened and cheeks burned. “Uh...” 

“I knew it!” Ali cheered. “You like my brother, you like my brot-” 

“Ali!” you scolded, covering your face with your hands as she successfully distracted you from your current task of listening for zombies. “It doesn’t matter if I like him, he has a girlfriend!” 

Ali pouted, crossing her arms. “No he doesn’t! If he did, he would have told me! He promised to tell me if he has a girlfriend!” 

You were stunned into silence. Did he really not have a girlfriend? You didn’t want to get your hopes up anyways, you would likely go your separate ways after you escaped from the building, he probably said that dinner thing as a joke. No matter how much you wanted it to be true, you had to put it aside for now.- 

“Even _if_  I like your brother, that doesn’t mean he likes me back!” you protested. Why were you talking about this with his little sister? 

“He has to! When Chase gets here, I’m telling him he has to date you!” Ali exclaimed. “Nobody else is allowed to be his girlfriend but you!” 

“Ali...” You were at a loss for words, trying to find anything to say to her to keep her from telling Chase that he had to date you, which would be extremely mortifying if he rejected you. You put that on pause when you heard a far-off noise which sounded like a loud crash. Ali immediately quieted down and joined you at the door. 

“Is that Chase?” she asked frantically, tugging on your clothes. 

“I don’t know,” you answered. “We have to wait until-” 

A few loud bangs, crashes and screeches from zombies later, you still had no idea what was going on. You heard a faint knocking, but it wasn’t on your door. The knocking continued until it finally reached your door. You wanted it to be Chase, but the knocker hadn’t said anything, and you weren’t about to let Ali be taken back by her evil mother for more experiments. Finally, after a few knocks, Ali couldn’t stand it anymore. 

“Chase?” she shouted. 

“Ali!” Came the answer, and you and Ali immediately stood up as you unlocked the door, throwing it open. 

Ali jumped at Chase, who put his gun back in his pocket just fast enough to catch her in his arms as she wrapped both her arms and legs around him, shouting his name. 

You stayed in the room, unable to approach Chase after your conversation with Ali. You were almost willing to crawl back in the vent to escape the awkwardness, but Chase’s gaze brought your eyes awkwardly up to meet his and he grinned at you. 

“Wait, I want my favorite watch!” Ali said, dashing back into the room as you shyly walked out and towards Chase, who as soon as you were within range, grabbed your arm and pulled you into a tight hug. 

“Thank you for saving Ali,” he said, his head on top of yours and your face pressed against his chest. “I can’t believe the antidote really worked.” 

“Yeah...” You were kicking yourself, you couldn’t think of anything else to say in the face of being this close to him. 

He drew back and smiled down at you, his face closer than it had been before, and were you crazy or was he coming closer? You were internally panicking, hoping your face didn’t look stupid or something. 

“Found it!” Ali announced, and you jerked away from Chase like he had burned you. Chase looked confused, but let you go over to Ali. 

“What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Did he say something mean to you? I’ll kick his butt!” 

“No, no!” you refuted quickly. “We should get going, though. Don’t want to run into any more zombies.” 

“I took care of all of the ones here,” Chase said. “There were only a few. I assume the rest fell through the hole in the floor.” 

“The what?” you asked. 

Chase led you and Ali to the common room, which was now completely ransacked with massive dents in the wall and items strewn everywhere. But most notable difference was the large likely Ed-made hole in the floor, close to the exit door and about where you had been injected with the virus. You looked down the hole to see pieces of floor and ceiling crumbled on the floor below, accompanied by a green gel-like substance that you did not want to know how Ed created.  

Noticing a shiny silver device intact by the door, you walked over and picked it up. Chase and Ali came over to follow you, and Chase noticed the device in your hands. 

“I found that in the elevator on this floor. It’s the secret elevator override control, it can completely take over control of the elevator, which will make it respond only to these controls,” he explained. “In case anyone else finds or calls the elevator, you can turn off their access and control it yourself.” 

“That’s pretty useful,” you admitted, looking at the remote which was identical to the floor choice panel in the secret elevator. Powering the device down, you placed it in your bag. 

“I got jumped as soon as I got in here, so that must have fallen out of my pocket,” Chase said, taking Ali’s hand and leading the three of you back into the hallway and out of the your dormmates’ final resting place. 

You walked down the long hallway that you had previously walked with the siblings’ mother, happy to not have to go back there again. You were leaving, and you were ecstatic. You had the elevator override, and nothing could stop you from entering the elevator and leaving this hellhole. Even Ed miraculously stayed away from your group as you followed Chase to the elevator. 

There was another door in the waiting area that you had not noticed before, and it was when you crossed the threshold into the dark hallway that you began to feel it. 

Your eyes hurt. They felt itchy, but a painful kind of itchy. They hurt more than they had ever hurt before, more than any pain you had felt before. And your hands were feeling increasingly numb, the main thing you could feel was your nails tingling. You almost stopped walking and fell down where you were standing when you realized. 

This was it. You were mutating. There was no other explanation. 

Your body could no longer resist the call of the virus, could no longer keep you fully human. Your eyes were wide, and you felt a cold sensation spread through your body as you tried to keep your tears from coming. You were openly panicking and were the only one who knew that you had lied to Chase. That you hadn’t used the cure on yourself, instead saving it for Ali to your own detriment. The feelings grew more intense, and you knew you didn’t have long before you joined the hordes of mindless undead roaming the building. 

Chase and Ali were facing forward, so you allowed yourself to cry silently on the walk to the elevator room. You couldn’t do this to them, stick them in an elevator with a zombified you trying to kill them. You couldn’t make Chase have to make the decision, which he would have to do, to put a bullet in your head. You couldn’t force him to put an end to your life. He had suffered too much already, and so had Ali. You would need to not be selfish and let them get to safety... without you. 

You reached a tingling hand into your bag, wrapping it around the elevator override as the three of you entered the secret elevator room. You had to save them. You had to protect them from you. Sneakily pulling the remote out of your bag, you followed them into the room. You knew what you had to do, but you desperately didn’t want to leave them. 

You followed them into the dimly lit room, the only light coming from the elevator shaft. You dried your tears as you walked in with them, hoping the dark would cover your red eyes. It seemed to be fine as Ali bounded over to you. 

“We get to leave!” she exclaimed. “When we get out of here, we need to have a nail painting party! And eat ice cream and have pillow fights and-” 

You smiled, a sad smile that you forced to look happy. “We’ll have so much fun, Ali.” 

Ali grinned and stepped to the side as Chase came forward, Ali waggling her eyebrows at you which you refused to acknowledge, wanting to be embarrassed but knowing that it was hard to bring up any emotion in yourself right now to overpower the deep sadness you felt at what you were about to do to yourself. To them. 

“When we get out of here, I’m holding you to that sleepover,” Chase said with a grin. “You can sleep in my room.” 

Your eyes went wide, and you couldn’t help a smile. That sounded wonderful. And you allowed yourself to dare to hope that Chase felt the same way as you. That would be so nice, spending time with Chase outside this horrible place. But it was a wish you knew you could never have. This last few moments with them was all that you would allow yourself. Only a bit more selfish pleasure of the company of the two people you never knew you needed in your life. You could only hope you would succumb to the virus quickly to save yourself the pain of an existence down here without them. 

“You’re on!” you said back to him, and he leaned down for another hug, and you allowed yourself to sink into his warmth, appreciating his smell that you would reminisce about for the last few minutes of your life, which was likely approaching soon as you felt the tingles spread to your legs. You had no time left, it was time to let them go. 

You broke the hug, giving Chase a smile as you turned to face the elevator. “We’d better go!” 

“Right,” Chase agreed, pressing the elevator call button and waiting at the door with Ali. The elevator took only half a minute to arrive as the clear doors opened and allowed you passage.  

Chase and Ali both got on the elevator, turning to you, standing just outside it, expecting you to come on as well.  

“One second,” you forced yourself to say. “Just have to tie my shoe!” 

Chase and Ali nodded their assent, believing your lie easily. You bent over onto the floor to pretend to tie your shoe. You had to do this, you knew you had to do this, and with a heavy heart, you took the elevator override remote and pressed the close doors button. Immediately, the doors closed faster than Chase or Ali could stop them as they stared, confused at the elevator doors, and you just beyond them. 

“What happened?” Chase asked, reaching over to press the door open button, then rapidly pressing it, to no results. “What did you do?” he shouted at you. 

You stood up slowly, turning around. “I’m so sorry...” 

“What did you do?” he shouted again, banging his fists on the elevator doors. Ali, behind him, had her eyes wide with fear, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. 

You held up the remote, walking towards the elevator doors, unable to stop the tears from flowing from your eyes any longer. “I’m so sorry, Chase... Ali... I can’t come with you.” 

“Why??” Ali screamed. “Why?” 

She was openly crying now, and Chase was staring at you, emotions wracking his face split between anger and confusion. 

“I lied to you, Chase. I’m sorry,” you said. It was really hard bringing yourself to tell him this. You wanted to just send him up and let him think you were some traitor, that you hated him and Ali or something. That might make you feel a bit better. But you owed him the truth. 

“About what?” he demanded. “Open these doors and we can talk about it!” 

“I can’t...” you trailed off as a sob wracked your body. “I lied. I didn’t cure myself. There was only one cure, and I wanted it go to Ali.” 

“What are you saying?!” Chase sounded distraught, his fists banging against the strong clear Plexiglas of the doors as his head sunk down, eyes to the floor. 

“My eyes hurt, and my body feels numb. It started on the way to the elevator, I knew I didn’t have much time...” It was hard to talk through your crying, desperately wiping your tears away as you talked. “I hoped that I would make it, that I wouldn’t need the cure, but I was wrong. I won’t make you deal with the burden of having to kill me, so I need to stay here.” 

Chase shouted your name, and Ali sunk to the floor in her despair. Chase was looking at you now, and his eyes were blazing. “You can’t make that decision for us!” he roared. “Open these doors and come with us!” 

You shook your head vigorously, drawing your eyes away from Chase as his stare was making you feel too guilty. Ali, too was begging you. “Please, you’re my first friend, you can’t go!” 

You couldn’t listen to them. Even these few moments were not in your best interest, if you mutated without pressing the button to send them to safety, they would be trapped in the elevator while you turned into a creature that would eventually kill them if starvation didn’t get them first. You couldn’t keep wasting their precious time to get to safety; you had to do the right thing and you had to do it now. 

“I’m sorry...” Was all you could say as you brought your finger down to press the 1 button. 

“No! Don’t do this! It’s not too late!” Chase shouted as Ali wailed behind him, sunk to the floor and unable to take her watery eyes off of you. 

But he was wrong. It was too late, and you knew it. They couldn’t save your life, but you could save theirs. And so, you pushed the button without regret but not without a deep permeating sadness that numbed you to your core. This would be your last glimpse of happiness before it left you alone and unable to resist turning into a horrible monster. 

The elevator began to rise, and you sunk to the floor in despair as you watched Chase and Ali leave your sight, both desperately screaming your name as they left you alone against their will. You didn’t have any more tears to cry once they had left your sight, and you let the pain take over as everything went black. 

 

Chase punched the side of the elevator, swearing loudly. “How could she do this?” 

Ali sobbed loudly on the ground as the elevator rose. “I want her back!” she wailed, pounding her little fists on the ground. “She was supposed to leave with us!” 

Chase sunk to the floor of the elevator with his little sister, drawing Ali into his arms as she cried loudly. Chase could no longer resist, and the emotions he was feeling overwhelmed him as he closed his eyes, still holding onto his sister. 

He wished you had told him instead of making the decision yourself. If you had told them there was only one cure, he could have done something to help you. Found some alternative. But you didn’t even try. You chose to lie to his face instead. 

But how could he be mad at you? You lied to save his little sister, you knew that if he knew you were still infected, he would have done anything in his power to help you. And you chose to send him and Ali to safety and let yourself mutate and rot down there with the other zombies. He knew you had done what you thought was right, but his heart was screaming at him to get back down there and get you back. You belonged here in this elevator with them, and no amount of convincing would make Chase feel otherwise. 

It was a long elevator ride to go up 20 floors, and he and Ali huddled together in their anguish, having each other but feeling a void in their midst that could only be filled by a girl deep below them who had sent them away to save their lives. 

The elevator finally dinged open, revealing the empty lobby of the building’s first floor. Nothing was amiss, but there was nobody in sight. Chase assumed that everyone had either left or was dead. He didn’t think there would be many survivors here. He helped Ali up and they both collapsed into each other as they leaned against the wall next to the elevator. As soon as they had exited, the elevator went back down to the horrors below. 

He heard Ali mumbling and looked down at her. “What is it?” 

“I... I’m sorry Chase,” she cried, pressing her tear-streaked face into his shirt. 

He placed a hand on her head. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. You didn’t know.” 

“But if she didn’t cure me, she would be okay!” Ali insisted. 

“Ali.” Chase gave her a stern look. “I’m not happy about it either, but she gave her life to save you. She wanted to save you.” 

“I... I just want her to be here with us!” Ali wailed. 

Chase couldn’t bring himself to reply because he knew he felt the same as his sister. He was so stupid for not saying anything earlier, why did he have to hint around it? He regretted more than anything that he never kissed you, and now he’d have to live with that regret. 

“I’m not stupid, Chase,” Ali mumbled. 

“I didn’t say you were,” Chase replied calmly, surprised to see Ali looking so serious, her bottom lip in a pout. 

“I know you liked her!” she insisted. “She told me she liked you but she was worried you had a girlfriend!” 

Chase was surprised, but let his sister continue talking. If they continued to talk about you, maybe that would drive his sorrows away for a bit. Ali’s too, as she was looking very passionate as she lectured him. 

“I told her you didn’t have a girlfriend, which you better not or I’ll break up with whatever girl for you!” Ali shouted with such force that it surprised Chase. 

“No, I don’t...” he said awkwardly. He was not expecting a lecture about his love life from his little sister ten years his junior in the face of what had just happened. 

“Yeah, so I told her that she has to be your girlfriend! I’d make you make her your girlfriend!” Ali was slowly running out of steam, and out of ability to keep her sadness at bay. “You have to make sure she’s your girlfriend! Promise me!” 

“Ali...” What was he supposed to tell her? The way things were right now, you were little more than a memory for the two of them. He had no choice but to believe you when you say you had little time left, so he didn’t know what kind of a state you were in right now. But how was he supposed to get back to you when you closed the path off? All of his hope of getting you back in his arms had run dry. He allowed Ali to bury her face in his chest again as she cried her heart out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt a little mean writing this chapter but love me some drama!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, unless I decide to add an epilogue, the next chapter of this story will be the last!

You didn’t know how long it had been since your world went black. You looked around, and the room looked the same, minus the elevator that you knew would not be taking you up to safety. Everything still hurt, but you did feel a little stronger. Maybe it was a strength-enhancing part of the virus, and the other mutations would be coming soon. You sat up, leaning on the wall. You wanted to give up and accept your fate, but you knew that you couldn’t. You were still unmutated, although the pains and aches still wracked your body. 

You stood up. Leaning against the wall for strength as you limped over to the elevator. You still had the override control, and you were going to use it to head back down to the lab and hope Irina was lying when she said there was only one cure, or at least find a way to make another before you succumbed. You called the elevator, gripping the edge of the wall to steady yourself as you slowly moved inside. Getting your body to cooperate right now was a challenge since you could feel aches from all over ranging from dull to stinging pains. 

You tried to not think about Chase and Ali, and that they were the last ones in this elevator that you were currently in. Pressing the button for the 31st floor, the elevator doors shut and you began to descend to the very lowest floor of the underground building. The last time you had seen Ed was down here, as evidenced by the large hole in the ceiling he had left from who knows where on the floor above. 

The elevator stopped and you had a good look into the hallway that led to the laboratory through the open entrance, the doors that Ed smashed previously resting against the walls. It was as you remembered, big chunks missing from the walls and Ed’s slime left behind, but you saw no sign of the middle-aged former human. You walked slowly along the hallway to the ruined doors that led into the lab. Peering in, you saw the large hole and the debris all over the lab, but still no Ed. You walked into the lab with renewed determination, you were going to get this cure and get out of this place if it killed you! And you were currently fighting a deadly virus within your body, so unfortunately your death was almost a surety at this point. 

You began looking through every drawer that didn’t look ransacked by you and Chase before. It was a lot of papers, charts with whatever _viral projections_  were, and when you got to the back of a filing cabinet you were looking in, you found a manila folder marked _subjects_. 

Inside, you found a profile of each of the people in the experiment, including you. In the corner of the profiles were photos that looked to be taken when you were in the building, although you didn’t remember seeing any cameras. Your photo seemed to have been taken when you were waiting in the underground lobby before you were taken back to the dorm. 

Skimming over your file, you found that it had a lot of information in it that you didn’t provide for them. The first page seemed to be your general profile... age, gender, blood type, and the second page was a bunch of scientific jargon that you didn’t have a clue of understanding. But on the third and last page of your file, you found some hand-written notes. 

 _Ordinary DNA structure. Predicting mutations to be standard. Previous patient of her profile showed some unexpected mutations thought to be tied to her gender. This patient should be terminated upon mutation and prioritized for dissection to establish a link to any significant reactions from the virus in_ _females._

You weren’t sure if that was good or bad. You had held out this long, so maybe this stupid report was wrong, and your DNA was at least a little above ordinary! You certainly beat out every single other person in the trial anyways. 

Leafing through the other files, you found similar notes to yours, Rose and Ethel’s both stating that they were expected to succumb to the virus very early on due to their age. And, well, they weren’t wrong, since Ethel was the first to turn. The men had various notes to their files, some expected to last longer than others, but when Ethel turned, she quickly incited the mutation of everyone but you and Ali. Although, the stress may have contributed to Ali’s mutations shortly after. Finally, you got to Ed’s file. 

 _Edward is expected to have little or no resistance to the virus after years of alcohol and drug abuse. His liver has sustained serious damage and most of his organs appear_ _to have mid-range or low conditional reports_ _. Edward functions as if his health complications do not exist, and after testing, he seems to possess a rare genetic mutation that produces larger amounts of testosterone than normal. Edward was a good find for the second trials and should have a significant reaction to the virus. First priority should be given to termination of this subject as his mutations are expected to make attempts at termination difficult._

Well, at least this file was accurate. You shoved the file back in the filing cabinet, unable to even look at Ed’s picture leering at you from the front of his file. If Ed was capable of breaking through entire floors of the building, then getting rid of him would be near impossible. You were going to move onto the next drawer of the filing cabinet when there was a click and a pressure at the back of your head. 

“I appreciate you coming back here.” Irina pressed the gun harder into the back of your head. 

You were stunned, too surprised and scared to do anything as she told you to turn around. You did so, reluctantly, to face the woman with the short brown hair who sneered at you, gun centimeters from your face. 

“You saved me a lot of time,” she said, eyes cold and voice emotionless. “Here I thought I’d have to get through my son to get to you. But you sent him away, so now you’re all alone.” 

“What do you want?” you worked up your courage to ask her, unable to ignore her threat of imminent death. 

She gave you a sharp look, as if what she wanted from you should have been obvious. “You haven’t mutated yet, and I want to know why.” 

You didn’t want to justify yourself to her, but maybe it was worth a try. “But I’ve been in pain, my eyes hurt, and my body feels like it’s on fire!” 

Irina rolled her eyes. “What you are feeling is your body integrating the virus into your regular body functions. You aren’t mutating, you stupid girl, you’re _immune_.” 

Immune? How were you immune? You had felt like you were on death’s door for a while now, and the news floored you. 

“The virus was designed to act within a twenty-four-hour period. All of our previous subjects have mutated within that time, with no exceptions. Not until you.” Irina sounded bitter, as if the fact that you were still fully human was a great failure to her. Which obviously it was. 

“I’m probably still going to mutate!” you protested. Between mutating and being shot in the head by her, at least if you mutated you might have a shot at taking her with you. 

“You’re not!” Irina snapped, motioning you over to one of the doors, gun carefully trained on your back as you walked. “This lab is built with sensors that analyze DNA structure. If there was a speck of mutation in you, it would have neutralized you.” 

You jaw dropped open. “Then why did you tell me I was immune when I was in your lab earlier?” 

Irina laughed cruelly. “I was hoping my son would stand aside. But as always, he disappoints me. If you are immune, I must find out why. There will be no natural immunities to the virus after I dissect you.” 

You spun around, only to have the gun shoved in your face again. You glared at Irina, who was unfazed as she stared you down, gun so close you could almost see inside it. “If you aren’t willing to consent, I don’t need you to be alive for dissection. A bullet in your head will not influence my findings.” 

What was wrong with her? You knew she didn’t care about her kids, but did she care about anything other than her research? You didn’t have a lot of options here, and they were all bad. 

“Irina!” 

The scream took both of your attention away from the situation at hand to stare at the entrance, where Irina’s frazzled husband was storming into the room, out of breath. 

“You’re late,” Irina snapped. “I need you to hold her still while I-” 

“No, Irina!” Raymond shouted. “You cannot keep doing this!” 

Irina merely stared at him, her eyes narrowing and mouth turning downwards to express her displeasure as he continued to talk. 

“This is wrong, Irina. We were wrong to do this. This girl saved our daughter while we did nothing, but I won’t let you continue this tyranny,” he said somberly as he stared down his wife, who was fuming, all but forgetting about you as you backed up away from her. “I knew our research would hurt people, kill people, but I allowed myself to forget.” 

“We will discuss this later, Raymond.” Irina’s voice was icy, but her glare was red hot, and aimed to incinerate her husband where he stood. 

“No!” Raymond yelled. “We will talk about this now! I won’t let you kill that girl!” 

Raymond took one step forward and a shot rang out in the room, the noise so close to you that it startled you back a few steps. At the entrance to the lab, Raymond, clutched an area just above his heart, blood bubbling to the surface and running down his shirt. He fell to the ground, gurgling his wife’s name once more through the blood flowing from his mouth. 

“You lost your vision, Raymond. Our vision. But I won’t let you stop me.” She turned the gun to you. “Move.” 

Her husband was bleeding out and she was still intent on cutting you up on a table. At this point, you’d even take Ed over her. Ed. That was kind of a bad idea, with possibly disastrous consequences for yourself, but maybe Ed would keep you alive for a while to taunt you and you could get lucky and make a run for it? At least with Ed you had a chance, and that wasn’t a great realization. 

“Ed!” you screamed as loud as you could, hoping for once that he was nearby. “Ed! I’m here!” 

Irina’s head snapped to face the ceiling as a loud crash rocked through the area, sending both of you to the floor, Irina dropped her gun, which slid across the floor towards you. You quickly grabbed it before she could look at you, stuffing it in your bag. 

There was plaster dust in the air, smoke rising and blocking your vision off, but when it cleared, you found that Raymond has vanished, a blood trail left in his wake headed towards the elevator. You kept your eyes on the elevator, knowing that you should get up and over to it right now. 

Irina screamed in frustration, about to lunge at you, nails at the ready, when another crash rocked the room. The sound was loud and sent another wave of ceiling to the floor of the lab. You were looking around, until you noticed through the previous hole that Ed had made, the ceiling of the floor above was cracking and sinking at the middle. Another crash created more severe fractures in the ceiling, which finally met in the center of the area, as the ceiling of the floor above broke, sending a mess of rubble as well as a large blind lizard monster down to you and Irina below. 

 

Chase and Ali were slumped against the wall opposite the elevator now, even an hour later. Chase knew that he didn’t want to move from here, didn’t want to give up on you, but with very little options to get to you he didn’t know what he could do. There were no stairs that went all the way up to the first floor, so the elevator was his only hope. And that elevator was currently closed to him and breaking it and jumping down a likely hundreds of feet long elevator shaft would just result in his own death. 

Ali had finally fallen asleep, drained after her horrifying experience and now her heartbreak at losing you. He hadn’t seen her this upset, not even when their mother ignored Ali for months on end did Ali look this sad. She needed the rest, so Chase let her sleep. He just hated that he couldn’t reassure you or bring you back to him and Ali. You hadn’t been with them for that long, but you were so important to both of them. Chase pondered what he would say to you if you saw you again when he was startled by the elevator lighting up. Somebody was using it to come to the first floor. 

Chase carefully set the sleeping Ali against the wall as he got up cautiously. The elevator pinged with the warning of an arrival as Chase rushed over, stopping but five feet away, gun at the ready. There was no way this would be Ed or a zombie; he doubted a zombie was smart enough to work an elevator override control and Ed was now blind, and also probably too stupid anyways, even in human form. They had been lucky that Ed’s eyes were the one thing that would not regenerate for whatever reason. So who did that leave? Chase was expecting to see a surviving scientist or his mother storming up to capture Ali again, but was shocked at the sight when the elevator came into his view. 

His father was laying on the floor of the elevator in a pool of blood that was coming from somewhere on his front, although Chase couldn’t see any wounds from all the blood that covered him. Other than that, the elevator was bare, and his father didn’t look to be doing too good. 

“Dad!” Chase exclaimed, running to his father’s side and helping him up and out of the elevator. He turned around to bring his dad over to his and Ali’s rest spot, only to notice the young girl awake. Of course he must have woken her with his shout, Ali always woke up to any slight noises. Ali rushed over frantically, trying to help Chase and her father as much as she could. 

They sat their father down, and the two Hayes siblings could not contain their questions. 

“What happened?” 

“Are you okay, dad?” 

Chase and Ali said at the same time. Raymond held up a hand to quiet his children, coughing out some more blood which dribbled down his chin only to be wiped on the sleeve of his white lab coat. Now that he was facing them, they could see the source of the blood was a wound in his chest. To Chase, it looked like a bullet wound, but he couldn’t be sure. 

“Ali...” Raymond said slowly. “I need to talk to Chase, you should go-” 

“No!” Ali yelled. “I want to hear too! You can’t send me away this time!” 

Raymond made to protest, but Chase knew that time was of the essence, and told his father to just tell both of them if Ali refused to leave. He wasn’t going to make her sit on the sidelines for this one, since it was likely something she deserved to know. 

Raymond reluctantly agreed, pressing a hand to his still-bleeding wound as he explained. “Your mother has your friend.” 

Chase made to interrupt, but Raymond gave his son a sharp look, which silenced him and allowed for Raymond to tell his tale. “Your friend is immune to the virus. She wasn’t aware until now, and your mother wants to dissect her to strengthen our virus.” 

Chase felt numb for a moment. You were _immune?_  He had to find you, get to you and bring you back here. And the elevator was right there for the taking. 

“Chase! Listen to me!” Raymond barked, and then was wracked with coughing. “If this girl means that much to you...” he met his son’s serious eyes as Chase confirmed that you did. “Your mother will kill you if you get in her way. She can no longer be reasoned with. You have to be prepared to deal with that.” 

“She was never a mother to me anyways,” Chase said, his green eyes dark in anger. 

“They were on the 31st floor when I last saw them. But as I left, the girl started screaming for Ed.” 

You were screaming for Ed? Why would you do that? Chase knew you didn’t want to be anywhere near that monster, so it was hard to wrap his head around. 

“They could be anywhere now. But you deserved to know...” Raymond’s voice trailed off. “You both deserved much better parents than you got. I see that now. Too late to change...” 

 Raymond’s voice was as weak as his pulse. He had lost a lot of blood and his consciousness was waning. Chase wanted to save you, but he knew he couldn’t leave his father dying in a pool of his own blood. 

“Go, stupid!” Ali said. 

“What?” Chase replied, staring at his little sister. 

“Go bring her back! I can help dad on my own! You don’t always have to help me do everything!” the young girl shouted. “If you don’t go now, I’m never going to talk to you again!” 

Chase couldn’t help but smile. Ali was being supportive in her own way. He reached a hand out to pat Ali’s head, which she pushed away. “Go! Or you’ll make me mad!” 

Chase stood up. “You need to call 9-1-1, Ali. Get dad out of here and then I’ll find you when I bring her up here.” 

“I’m counting on you!” Ali replied. “Please come back safe!” 

Chase nodded, and with a small wave to his sister, he took his dad’s proffered elevator override and headed into the elevator, prepared to risk his life to find you again. He had too much nervous energy right now, torn between worrying about his severely injured father, and what your fate was right now. He had to trust that Ali would get their dad help; she was very headstrong, and he knew that she would do her very best. So he had to do what he needed to do, and find you before you got yourself killed. 

 

You screamed as Ed hit the floor from two floors above, the jump not phasing him at all. He landed closer to Irina than you, and you scrambled quickly under a nearby table, hoping Ed wouldn’t pick out the noise with his likely more sensitive hearing. You were trying not to shake but it was hard as you held your bag close to you to prevent it from making any noise as you stared wide-eyed at the blind hulking monster. 

“Edward!” Irina’s shriek was pure fury as she got to her feet, too distracted to look for you in the room. “I should have slit your throat before the experiment even began!” 

Ed’s head turned to her immediately, mouth drawing open and releasing electric green slime that dribbled down his chin. He began to make a noise that sounded like a cross between a pant and a growl as he advanced on her, flexing his claws with confidence. 

Irina scoffed lowly at the grotesque creature’s advance, looking to the ground beside her to see her gun was missing. As if she remembered where she was, Irina’s eyes quickly scanned the room and found you cowering under the table. As far as she was away from you, her glare radiated clearly from where she stood. She was angry and you might have to start running from Ed and her. 

“You little bitch, your interference ends now!” Irina screamed, ignoring the hulk before her and dashing towards where you hid as a shiver of fear struck your spine. 

Unfortunately for her, Ed wasn’t about to let her pass him unscathed, with all the noise she was making alerting him to where she was immediately. Ed swung a giant clawed fist at Irina as she attempted to pass by him, missing and swinging across one of the tall research desks, sending a wave of chemicals in beakers towards and then over Irina, who fell to the ground in agony as she began to scream. 

Ed made his way over to her with a bout of cruel laughter warped through his mutated throat as he attempted to crack his knuckles. Irina shouted again, though this time in anger more than pain as the chemicals dissolved her clothing to reveal so many chemical burns that her body was only humanoid in shape. 

“You fucking pig!” she screamed at Ed. As you watched in horror and confusion, she turned to look at you with eyes that looked like they were about to melt along with the rest of her body. “You’re first.” 

You were confused for a moment about what she could mean by that until her burns started to change color. They deepened from an angry red to a light green and you fell against some chair legs in surprise. The noise didn’t seem to faze Ed as he began to sniff around to deduce what was happening to his current prey. With the aid of sight, you immediately discerned what was happening to Irina, and what those chemicals Ed spilled on her must have been. You were going into panic mode, there was no way you could escape two mutated creatures, and you had only escaped Ed with someone else’s help both times. 

Irina began cackling loudly as her pupils began to grow larger and set themselves in brown where her eye whites had been, the laughter that came out sounding like she had been smoking for years and years with how croaky it sounded. Her skin began to grow hard and developed many wide, small green spikes all along her whole body, the spikes turning a light brown around her face. You started to slowly crawl out from under the table, keeping your eyes on her the whole time as her arms and legs bent at their middle joints, turning entirely reptilian as the ends of her fingers and toes swelled up and long claws grew out of all of the grossly large joints. 

She let out a roar as her teeth elongated into long fangs and a tail emerged from behind her and began to be dotted with very sharp spikes from the crown of her head all the way down the tail in a menacing line. Her short mousy brown hair fell to the floor as small spikes emerged from all around her head and she fell to a position on her now-reptilian hands and feet. As she drew her head back for a moment you noticed she even had a neck pouch which almost looked silly compared to the rest of her deadly new additions. She looked like a lizard at a death metal concert, except that would be significantly less harmful than what you were currently facing as you stood up and looked around for anywhere to go to get out of here before things got even worse. 

The doors that Irina had entered from before were both locked, and you didn’t have any way to get through them. The way you were looking at it, you had to either magically summon a ladder and climb out through the hole in the ceiling or you would have to run through the now two mutated monsters that wanted you dead. 

Irina attempted again to dash around Ed, moving much faster with her new mutations. You were frozen in place in fear, she looked absolutely nothing like the person she was only minutes before. You finally snapped out of it long enough to run to the side of the laboratory just as Ed growled loudly and shoved at Irina as she was mid-flight towards you, flinging her into the wall opposite from the side you were on. 

“I will bury you, you insolent moron!” Irina howled in a voice that was way deeper than her natural one as she stood up to advance on Ed. 

Ed was grumbling lowly and his arm muscles were all twitching at her approach. You turned to look at Irina, in part because it was getting really hard to look at Ed’s gross empty eye sockets. It was no favor to you that Irina still had her eyes intact, although you were grateful that Ed had distracted her for the moment. As slowly as you could, you backed up into a back corner of the room, huddling there to make yourself small and unnoticed as the two gigantic mutants squared up against each other. 

You were unable to look away from the fight and it became almost painful to blink you were so focused. Ed swung a fist towards where Irina had been, missing her by a hair as she jumped to the side to avoid his blow. Ed sure had the strength, but Irina was more lithe and able to dodge his attacks, and Ed’s lack of sight was really hindering him in combat with a creature that was more than a match for him. 

Ed was pulling tables that were attached to the ground straight off the floor and throwing them at Irina, which only served to make large dents in the walls which complimented the giant holes in the two floors above you. Irina was getting good hits in, her spike-tipped body smashing into the hulking creature and sending him backwards a few feet. Ed growled and charged at her, only to be dodged and then smacked in the back of his head by Irina’s tail. 

You nervously looked down because this fight was getting hard to watch and you were too scared to try and make a run to the elevator through the nasty fight. You suddenly recalled Irina’s gun in your purse, which gave you some hope. Not enough to try and run through them, since guns didn’t seem to stop Ed before, and Irina had to be just as tough. The formerly-burned skin covering her body looked as hard as armor, and you weren’t about to test out it really was only to have her attention back on you. But if they both turned on you, you wouldn’t be entirely defenseless, although you weren’t sure how good of a shot you would be. You wished Chase was here with his gun abilities, but you didn’t want to sentence him to the hell you were in right now. If you didn’t make it, you could die comforted by the fact that him and Ali got out. 

Beakers were crashing to the floor as the two fought, knocking nearly every object in the room out of place. You watched as the large computer bank in the middle of the room was smashed on the ground as Irina flung the table it was on into Ed. You seemed to be in the only safe zone since they hadn’t gotten themselves in any of the corners yet, happy to fight in the center area of the large room as they scaled the walls and smashed each other into from various places. The fight was brutal, but you couldn’t help but notice that it did not seem to be going in Ed’s favor. You weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not. 

“You! Scaly! Moron!” Irina shouted, punctuating each word with another slash of her claws at Ed’s chest as he desperately tried to back up and hit the wall behind him as Irina advanced angrily. 

Irina had Ed pinned to the wall as her claws seemed to elongate and puncture Ed’s flesh just above his chest. Ed shrieked in assumed pain but seemed to not be able to move as he stayed in place, desperately wriggling but looking like he was losing strength entirely. He garbled something so low that you couldn’t hear, and Irina laughed lowly and cruelly in response. 

“You had to fuck up my plans, didn’t you, you useless creature,” Irina hissed angrily. 

You knew you would never get a chance better than this; Irina was fully occupied with Ed, giving you the best shot you would get at escaping this alive. You slowly stood up, holding your bag close to your body to avoid it making any noises as you began to move as quietly as you could towards the entrance door, keeping your back to the largely-ruined wall as you kept your eyes on the scene before you. 

Irina seemed to dig her claws in further, which was your guess based on another of Ed’s large cries of pain as he leaned slumped against the wall. Your mind was filled with only the desire to escape this hell alive as you continued to sneak and had just gotten about halfway across the room when you were frozen in place at what sounded like a death cry from Ed. 

You had let your mind get too focused on escape that you forgot to closely watch what was happening with Ed and Irina and you looked from the door you were to escape from to the scene just in time to watch Irina draw her claws from Ed’s body as her hand came out with a fairly large object that looked like bloody pulp. Your back hit the wall with a thump as you realized from science classes in high school that it had to be Ed’s heart that Irina was holding. It was green and looked slimy, still pulsing as Irina held it in her hand to examine it, stepping just far enough away from Ed that she could evade his desperate last grab at getting the organ back to his body. His eyes bugged out and he could only let out a sad howl that turned into a whisper before the gross middle-aged-man-turned-monster's eyes glassed over and he finally stopped moving as he succumbed to his death. 

“This will be an asset to my research. At least you were useful for something,” Irina drawled, examining the disfigured heart she held in her long claws. 

She seemed occupied enough and you knew you would be next, so you gave up your attempts at stealth and began to sprint towards the door leading to the elevator. You didn’t give any thought to looking behind you, you couldn’t give yourself any distractions on your way out. You knew Irina was giving chase because the loud clacking of her claws on the ground began immediately after you started running. The door was almost within grabbing distance and you put all you could into going as fast as possible in the hope that you would make it. 

A hope that was dashed quickly when Irina jumped down in front of the door from her position on the ceiling above you. 

“Little brat,” she hissed happily. “You’re finally mine.” 

Your anxiety skyrocketed as you took a step back to try and run away from her, but you quickly lost all the breath in your lungs as Irina grabbed you harshly around the neck, her claws digging into your shoulder. You were frozen both in fear and with the knowledge that if you moved even one inch, she would not hesitate to do to you what she just did to Ed. The glowing green heart laying on the ground nearby was enough reminder that her threats were not empty. You met her gaze, fully confident that you must have looked like you were going to pass out then and there. 

Irina was crouched down on her reptilian legs as her grossly mutated fingers kept their hold around your neck. “This should not have happened to me, and I have nobody to blame but you. If it wasn’t for you, my children would have not interfered with my plans like this. I’m going to enjoy dissecting you.” 

“No...” you whispered sadly. 

You only knew that you were immune for all of a few minutes, and you had to sorrowfully accept that you had blown your only chance to get out of here, back to Chase and Ali. You had no ground to make a last stand, you were just an average human and she was a giant monster now, there would be no heroic battle. There would only be you, inner organs on display for a horrid monster on a dissection table, and you weren’t even sure if she would kill you first or leave you alive to suffer. You had run clear out of options and hope; your eyes briefly drifted to the exit into the lab hallway which showed the elevator just beyond your reach. 

Her grip around your neck was getting too tight, and you could do little other than wheeze as your eyelids grew heavy and your brain became foggy. Sounds faded beyond her voice and your vision limited to a scope of only Irina’s mutated face. What a miserable last thing to ever see, you thought bitterly. 

“That’s it, you little bitch. I’ll use your virus-resistant cells to remake my original body. I’ll be needing most of your internal organs, though. You can keep your liver, that will be of no use to me,” she sneered. 

You wanted to swear at her, but your oxygen was rapidly depleting as she squeezed tighter and tighter on your throat, trailing a claw from her other hand down the side of your face in a gesture of obviously fake caring. You didn’t even have the energy to give her the finger as you felt your consciousness get to a point where you wouldn’t come back. You had no options, nothing that would save you from this situation. 

And so you let death take you. 


End file.
